Everything I've Ever Done: Reunion
by duj
Summary: SSHG sequel to Everything I've Ever Done, with new Percy arc. Epilogue: It was a very Weasley wedding...
1. The Family End

THE FAMILY END

**Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

**Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewer, Bellegeste. (Enjoy your holiday, Cecelle.)**

**This was originally ch 21 of "Everything" but I've moved it to a place in its own right as a bona fide sequel, instead of just an add-on. So a quick recap: ****HBP never happened. Hermione married Severus three years after graduating Hogwarts and they have two children, Callie and Cammie. He's Deputy Headmaster and she's an Unspeakable. Friendships have grown and/or broken between unexpected partners.**

**I've used italics for the flashback to avoid confusion since it's interspersed with the Welcoming Feast.**

Hermione sat at the family end of the Head Table, watching the new first years troop in behind her husband. She was sitting next to Ginny tonight as Severus always sat between Minerva and Amory on ceremonial occasions. Callie, at the Slytherin table, was arguing as usual with Tavie Greengrass and Gerry Nott, her inseparable best friends, and soon Cammie would be sorted into Gryffindor. They'd all known that ever since her tremendous tantrum when her father caught her dragging a school broom to the Quidditch field at the age of three and a half and firmly removed it from her grasp. There she was with Alison, her best friend since infant school.

Severus glanced across at Hermione with a half-roll of the eyes and a grim twitch at the corner of his mouth. She followed his eyes to the three new Weasleys – Fred's, George's and Charlie's – and the two pink-robed boys glaring at them and shook her head in sympathy. She nudged Ginny.

"They must have started on the train already," she muttered.

"Just be glad the twins' kids only come in singles," Ginny muttered back. "Imagine four of Fred's and George's kids in the same class!"

Hermione shuddered. It was bad enough that their wives always seemed to get pregnant at the same time.

"I have enough headaches, thank you very much." Times like this reminded her why she hadn't gone into teaching.

Neville frowned, scanning the Gryffindor table and tallying up how many other nephews and nieces he'd be teaching. Two of Bill's, two of Charlie's, three of Ron's, one each of the twins' and, of course, there were his own two sons. Bill's girls were at Beauxbatons.

"If I'd remembered which nephews were starting this year, I'd never have let Severus convince me to take this job," he grumbled. "Plants don't play pranks."

"But you are glad to be back, aren't you?" Hermione said. "Maybe it's different for you two, but Hogwarts was my first home in our world. I still smile every morning I wake up and remember where I am and I've been back almost seventeen years now."

"I never expected to be returning as a teacher," Neville said. "And when I remember how Severus used to terrify me, I'm sure I'd have fainted at the very thought."

"I suppose that's the famous Alison?" Ginny asked, turning back to the first years and craning her neck for a closer look at Cammie's companion. The girl was taller than Cammie, with hair quite as dark but much curlier and the milk-coffee skin of a bi-racial heritage. "Does she look like her dad or her mum?" She'd been hearing about them for years. "I must say, I still find it hard to believe that Severus could be such friends with a Muggle!"

"It began with the girls. I used to see Amanda at after-school care when I picked my girls up – remember how busy I was that year? My first as a supervisor –and then when all their kids turned out to be witches and we began advising them on magic issues, well, it all flowed on from there. Shh, the Sorting's starting."

Inwardly, Hermione breathed a sigh of relief for the fortunate interruption. It hadn't been quite like that. One day Ginny would find out the truth and then she'd probably never speak to her again. But she had no choice. She'd promised.

_It was a-many years ago,  
Try ten by ten by ten,  
The Founders joined to start this school,  
For they were all friends then._

_Each had a different vision  
Of what a school should be,  
And to Sort each fine new student,  
They gave the task to me._

_For I can see what's hidden  
What you yourself don't know,  
And after looking in your head,  
I'll tell you where to go._

There was a ripple of laughter. The Hat gave what, in a person, would be a smug bow and continued.

_Bold Gryffindor chose courage,  
The swift and bold and brave  
Sage Ravenclaw loved wisdom,  
The thoughtful, bright and grave,_

_Sly Slytherin prized cunning,  
The persuasive-tongued and clever,  
Kind Hufflepuff chose patience,  
Those persistent in endeavour._

_The differences they cherished.  
You see, it takes all kinds;  
To build up something lasting  
Needs hearts, hands, eyes and minds._

_So do not hate a brother  
Just because he's not like you  
And his ways are not your ways.  
His heart may still be true._

Hermione's head jerked up and she glanced instinctively at her husband in query. He gave her the little shake of the head and half-raised eyebrow that meant, "I had nothing to do with it," and unrolled the scroll of names with ceremonial deliberation.

"Benwick, Benjamin!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Boll, Angela!"

"SLYTHERIN!"

_Six years ago, she'd gone to pick up the girls from Northfield Primary after-care as usual at 5.30 pm, but that afternoon it hadn't been cheerful West Indian Amanda with her gaggle of little girls, two walking, two in a double-stroller and one in a baby-carrier, picking up Cammie's new best friend. It had been her husband_.

"Carey, Solomon!" That was the first pink-robed boy, still grimacing at the Weasley three until the Hat covered his face.

"SLYTHERIN!"

_Lanky and fidgety in pinstriped business suit andforward-tilted hat, Manda's husband had hurried in through the gate and looked around for his daughter. He'd picked her up and whirled her around and still Hermione, checking through Callie's bag for her homework book, hadn't seen his face. Then Alison had pulled off his hat and put it on her own head - "Look at me, daddy!" – and Hermione had glanced up at short curly hair in a very familiar shade of red. He'd turned a little and she'd seen his profile. Callie's homework had been forgotten._

"Devereux, Gennifer!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

"Devereux, Rupert!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Not twins, cousins. There were a lot of cousins this year – and not all of them were Weasleys.

"_Percy! What are you – You're supposed to be dead!" A freak Floo accident a week after Voldemort's defeat. Bill had identified the body._

_The man's head snapped up and paled behind the freckles. His nostrils flared, but he said nothing._

"_My daddy isn't deaded." Alison glared. "You're very silly, Cammie's mummy." _

"My mummy's not silly," Hermione's girls chimed in together. "You're silly."

_Both parents hushed their children, then Alison's father spoke._

"_I'm afraid you must have mistaken me for someone else. My name's Adam Wales." He had Percy's voice, but a rather less formal speech pattern. Still, it had been over a decade ago. People changed. _

"_You looked up when I said Percy."_

_He cleared his throat._

"_My middle name's Percival. Some of my friends used to call me that." __He flushed at the disbelieving look she gave in reply, but stood his ground, a polite false smile pinned on his rigid face. _"_If that's all?"_

_She'd have to shock him out of his denial._

"_Your father passed away last year," she told him. "We think he was working on an aeroplane engine but it caught fire and then the firecrackers went up too."_

_His smile flickered and his Adam's apple bobbed twice, but he didn't reply._

"_Ow, Daddy! You're squashing me."_

_He blinked and looked down at the indignant little girl in his arms. He dropped a kiss on her hair._

"_Sorry poppet." His voice was muffled. "Look, I really have to get going. Nice meeting you, Mrs –?"_

_He was already turning away, still holding on to his daughter._

"_Ginny's my best friend," Hermione said. He'd forgotten Alison's bag. She picked it up and took a step towards him. Cammie and Callie picked up their bags and came too. "I can't not tell her. And then she'll tell the twins and –"_

_He swung back instantly._

"_Don't tell them!" His voice cracked. "Please, Hermione. If you ever felt any friendship for me at all."_

_She gave him Alison's bag. He took it and allowed Alison to scramble down and skip over to Hermione's girls. They didn't know what the conversation was about and they didn't care. The important thing was that grown-ups talking meant extra play-time for them._

"_Why, Percy? Why did you do it?" Fake his own death and leave the wizard world to live as a Muggle. Leave his promising career in the ministry and all his ambitions. She could hardly believe it even now._

_He glanced wildly around. Nobody was close enough to hear their conversation. He licked his lips and shook his head._

"_I can't talk about that here." _

_She checked her watch._

"_There's a park around the corner. I have half an hour. You?"_

_He turned his head away. His shoulders sagged._

"_I'll ask." He pulled out his mobile. "Manda, love, Alison wants to go to the park with – what did you say your girls' names were? __Callie and Cammie. Is that all right or do you need us home?"_

"Nalinski, Lara!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

Severus paused to glare at the three new Weasleys for chattering. Charlotte hung her head a little, but both boys grinned. They really were very like their fathers.

"Parkinson, Patrick!" The other pink-robed boy. Pansy's cousin, wasn't it, Hermione thought. No prizes for guessing what he'd be.

"SLYTHERIN!"

_Permission given, the five set out, three excited little girls pulling their elders forward by the hands. Hermione waited till she was seated next to Percy on a bench close enough to supervise the girls on the slide, before asking again._

"_Why did you do it, Percy? Voldemort was dead, there was nothing to be afraid of any more and Scrimgeour had just promoted you again. I thought you liked working for the Ministry."_

_His eyes were trained on his daughter, but he seemed to be seeing something much further away._

"_I'd been thinking about leaving forat least a year and a half," he said at last. "Mum has a cousin who's a squib. I'd been visiting him sometimes on Sunday afternoons, getting familiar with the Muggle world, learning what I'd need to know. He was always happy to see me." His mouth tightened. "And that made a nice change then, being welcome amongst family." _

_Hermione's throat closed, even as her eyes widened. He'd seemed so self-satisfied in those days, the few occasions she'd seen him. _

"_I just wanted to keep them all safe, you know. That's all I've ever wanted. I remember – enough – of the first war to need that. I thought I could do that better in the Ministry, because you can't change things from outside. But they wouldn't listen. And then after V-Voldemort was gone – and everyone said it was for good this time –" He turned to her with narrowed eyes. "It was for good, wasn't it?"_

"_Yes."_

"Snape, Camomile!"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Hermione sent a look of commiseration to her husband and of congratulation to her younger daughter, then glanced over at Callie and her friends, who were clapping as hard as any Gryffindor. The girls waved and Severus's mouth twitched.

"_I knew they didn't need me any more after that. And they didn't want me. They'd never wanted me." Throat working, he stared blindly at his daughter, clambering now up a rope ladder. She was a good climber._

"_They did," Hermione protested weakly._

"_Don't – lie to me, Hermione! The last time I was at the Burrow, they threw mashed parsnip in my face!"_

_It should have sounded funny, but she'd never felt less like laughing._

"_And they've thrown worse. Fred and George – That doesn't matter now. Just – if you tell them, I'll have to start over again elsewhere in a hurry. And it's so much harder with a family." _

"_Your mother – She always loved you."_

_He shook his head._

"_As long as I was good little Percy who did as he was told. But when I dared to think for myself, she took my father's side."_

"_Only because you were wrong." Molly had tried to make up with him. He'd refused to see her and sent back her letters unread._

"_I wasn't wrong, Hermione. For five years, I watched Ron and Ginny get hurt or almost killed chasing after Harry while Dumbledore sat on his hands or, worse, rewarded him! Penny got Petrified by a basilisk in my sixth year and he still didn't close the school till Ginny got taken! Ron almost got eaten by a werewolf and I thought he was drowned at the Triwizards! They got hurt fighting Death Eaters when they should have been at school! And Dumbledore praised them!"_

"_They were right about Voldemort's return and the Ministry was wrong," she pointed out._

"_They were wrong about how they wanted to deal with it. Their entire effort in the hands of a reckless, irresponsible teenager!"_

"_There was a Prophecy, It had to be Harry." Not that Percy could have known that at the time._

"_How can we know that?" Percy argued. "Prophecies are self-fulfilling. They only work because people follow them. Dumbledore thought it had to be Harry, so he didn't try anything else." _

_There wasn't much point in arguing about that now. Events had vindicated Dumbledore, but things were always clearer in hindsight, weren't they?_

_"I suppose I can understand how you might see it that way. But Percy – You can't hide forever. Alison will get a Hogwarts letter one day and then what will you do?"_

"Wales, Alison!"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Cammie jumped and squeaked with joy. Hermione's eyes met her husband's again. It wasn't a surprise nor was it totally unwelcome. The girls would be happy, at least, their elders less so. Rooming with relatives would make discovery more likely.

"_I'm hoping she'll be a squib," he said. "That they'll all be squibs."_

_"Oh, Percy." Six children already and he hoped they'd all be squibs? "I have to go, but I think you should talk to my husband at least. He's Deputy Headmaster now and besides – he knows what it's like to have a past you don't want to remember." And he was the best confidant if you wanted honesty rather than false sympathy. He never sugar-coated his responses, but he'd learnt tact, discretion and imperturbability at Voldemort's elbow – nothing like a Crucio to teach one to be silent and unshockable – and honed his listening skills in three decades as a Head of House._

Weasley, Charlotte; Weasley, David; and Weasley, Jonathan. All Gryffindors. No surprises there either.

"_Who did you marry? Not – not one of my brothers?" Percy looked at the laughing girls chasing each other into and out of the tunnel and his brow cleared. "No, not with that hair."_

_Hermione gave a choke of laughter._

"_No, I can safely say that Severus is not one of your brothers."_

"_Severus? I don't remember a Severus at Hogwarts. Do I know him?"_

"_Oh, I think so." Her eyes danced. "He taught you Potions for seven years."_

_He stared at her aghast._

"_Snape? Not Snape, Hermione? Tell me you didn't marry him! He's – was – a bully, a traitor, a –" He flushed. "I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't be badmouthing him to you, but – a Death Eater, Hermione!"_

_She bit hard on her lower lip to still the ache in her heart. She'd thought she was over caring what people still sometimes said about her husband, but even this outcast from their world criticised her choice._

"_Not a Death Eater," she said shortly. "A war hero. Our spy in their camp for almost twenty years. The bravest, most honourable person I know."_

"Wexford, Walter"

"RAVENCLAW!"

_Severus had been almost as reluctant to speak to Percy as Percy had been to speak to him, but she'd been married long enough to know exactly which buttons to push._

"_I know. I'm always asking you to be nice to my repellent friends." She'd snaked one arm around his waist and the other hand through his hair and gazed up into his dark eyes. "But he was the first person at Hogwarts to be nice to me. The only one, at first. I owe him for that."_

_And from that first wary meeting, a friendship had grown between their two families as Percy – Adam – began to rely more and more on Severus's advice. He'd helped him get the courage to open up to Manda about his background and helped them deal with the first unwelcome signs of magic in their children. They'd planned and strategised together about the future._

_Percy hadn't wanted his daughters to go to Hogwarts, for fear of their being recognised. Most of the children resembled Manda, but the older twins, Amalie and Adelaide, had dark red hair and long Weasley noses. He'd favoured Beauxbatons at first, until Bill sent Louise and Jeanne-Paule there. After that,he'd begun talking about moving to the Americas for Salem Academy or to New Zealand for the small but very exclusive Wanganui Witchcraft College.Then Manda had developed breast cancer. She'd been in remission for three years now, but all thoughts of leaving Great Britain had been set aside. They'd just have to take their chances. So here Alison was. _

"Yellen, Nissa"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

That was the last. Severus rolled up the scroll, picked up the Sorting Hat and left the Hall. Hermione knew he'd make a detour to the Owlery before coming back, to send Adam the news. Another promise. And promises had to be kept.

**A/N Although this story is canon-compatible only with the first five books, I've taken Scrimgeour and the mashed parsnip incident from HBP. "Long Weasley noses" is an extension of JK's description of Ron. I don't think she mentions what the other Weasleys' noses look like.**

**I'd been thinking of a Crookshanks-eye view of Hermione's first week of marriage, but Percy came storming in and demanded his story be told. ****Would he really leave his career and his world to go into hiding? Obviously, I see it as a possibility. He felt rejected by his family long before he rejected them, and their world is so small (with the twins so persistently harassing and the Ministry so intent on using him as a bridge) that he can't really escape them any other way.**

**There are so many second-generation children in this story, I've included a character list to help you remember who's who.**

**Character list**

**Severus Snape (Deputy Head, Slytherin Head, Potions master) m Hermione Granger  
ch:  
Calendula Marigold (Callie) - 3rd year  
Camomile Aster (Cammie) - 1st year**

**Gerrilyn (Gerry) Nott and Tavia (Tavie) Greengrass are Callie's best friends.**

**Adam Wales (aka Percy Weasley) m Amanda (Manda)  
ch:  
Alison - 1st year, age 12  
twins Amalie (Am) and Adelaide (Addie) - age 11  
Anthea (Thea) - age 10  
Abigail - age 9  
Aglaia (Aggie) - age 7 1/2  
Amy-Rose - age 6  
Alfrida - age 5  
twins Arielle and Aislynn - 3 1/2**

**Molly Weasley**

**Bill Weasley m Fleur Delacour  
ch:  
Thierry - Head Boy, 7th year  
Louise - 5th year, Beauxbatons  
Jeanne-Paule - 3rd year Beauxbatons  
Julien - 2nd year**

**Charlie Weasley m  
ch:  
Marianna - 6th year, Prefect  
Martin - 5th year, Quidditch team  
Charlotte - 1st year  
Natalie - age 10**

**Fred m  
ch:  
Kerry - 4th year, Quidditch team  
Jonathon - 1st year**

**George  
ch:  
Kelly - 4th year, Quidditch team  
David - 1st year**

**Ron Weasley m Susan Bones  
ch:  
twins Michael Jacob and Diana - 6th year  
Laura Johanna - 3rd year**

**Neville Longbottom (Herbology Professor) m Ginny Weasley  
ch:  
Stephen - 5th year, Prefect  
Frank - 3rd year**

**Minerva McGonagall (Head) m Amory Marchant (Gryffindor Head, Defense Professor)**

**Harry Potter m Hannah Abbott**


	2. Family Resemblances

FAMILY RESEMBLANCES

**Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

**Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewer, Bellegeste. There's a character list at the end of the chapter.**

The storm didn't break until the following Easter. For six months, Alison had studied, played, eaten and slept cheek-by-jowl with her unknowing, unacknowledged cousins. Charlotte was in her dorm, and – with David and Jonathon – in all her classes, Marianna and Stephen were her House prefects and Thierry was Head Boy. She cheered for Kerry, Kelly and Martin at Quidditch and Julien, Michael, Diana, Frank and Laura sat at the Gryffindor table in the Hall or passed her in the common room. And no one had suspected anything. No family pictures spotted, no family resemblances traced, no similarities in temperament or history noted. Hermione breathed a sigh of relief and tried not to think about inevitable discovery. For it was inevitable.

Every spare private moment that year, she discussed their plans with Severus, how they would handle it, what they would say, how much to tell their daughters, how to rearrange the Head Table seating if Ginny was unforgiving. He bore it as patiently as he could, and when he couldn't, he used the tried-and-true distraction method of Gryffindor-bashing. She saw right through it, and knew to change the subject.

And then in the middle of Easter break, Ginny dropped in unexpectedly at the house they always holidayed in, while Adam was picking up Alison after a sleep-over. He shouldn't even have been there. Normally, Manda did all the delivery services that involved entering the Snapes' home, but Amy-Rose had fallen from a high cupboard she wasn't supposed to be climbing and Manda was still with her at the hospital, waiting for her X-rays, while the babysitter minded the other children.

Unfortunately, it was Callie who opened the door and she'd never been told of any reason to keep Ginny from seeing their other guests. By the time Hermione and Severus realised she was there, it was too late.

Ginny took two steps into the room and stopped. There was a tense waiting silence as two redheads stared motionlessly at each other, then –

"Percy?" Her voice came out in a strangled whisper. Her mouth moved as if she was trying to continue, but no words came out.

Her brother's hand tightened on his daughter's shoulder. There was an unfamiliar hungry glitter in his eyes. He gulped, blinked and looked away.

"My name is Adam Wales," he said.

Ginny's mouth closed with a snap and she took a step towards him. Whatever doubts she'd harboured had vanished at the sound of that familiar voice.

"Don't be ridiculous, Percy. As if I wouldn't recognise my own brother!" Her brow puckered and her eyes narrowed in a long sideways glance. "Why aren't you wearing your specs?"

"Laser surgery," he said mechanically, then shook his head as if waking from a dream. "I'm not your brother. If you remember, Mrs Longbottom –"

"Mrs? Mrs Longb – Percy!" she spluttered.

He continued as if he hadn't heard, "You disowned me. In case you've forgotten, let me remind you what you said the last time we met, 'You're no brother of mine, Percy Weasley!'"

"I never – Well, you didn't think I really meant that!"

His chin tilted and his eyes narrowed.

"Didn't you? And I suppose your brothers didn't mean it either. Just a pleasant joke," he said sarcastically. "What a pity! Percy Weasley is dead; he's been dead for twenty years."

"Percy –"

"I'm not Percy!" he said through gritted teeth.

"Perhaps you should both sit down," Severus intervened. But Alison was twisting under her father's hand to stare up into his face.

"Wait a minute!" she said, her voice gradually growing louder and shriller. "Dad, why did Mrs Longbottom say – You're her _brother_? You mean I'm _not _a Muggle-born! I've been wanting to be part of this world forever –" she wrenched herself away and put hands on hips and chin pugnaciously forward. "Well, since I was five anyway, and you mean I always was and you didn't tell me?"

"Alison –"

"You didn't care how much you hurt your family, did you?" Ginny sneered. "You never cared –"

"Shut_-up!"_ Adam/Percy flung at her, his face flaming as bright as his hair. "I have nothing to say to you, Ginevra Molly Weasley. Not now; not ever! Alison," his voice softened. "I did what I thought was best. I didn't want them to hurt my family the way they did me. I wanted you to have a better life –"

"No, Dad, you tried to rob me – us – of what's ours by right, bring us up as Muggles when we weren't anything of the kind –"

Callie nudged her sister as they looked back and forth at the speakers, "Look out! Dad's gonna blow!"

Cammie rolled her eyes.

"Not if mum blows first," she said. Their mother's temper was more explosive, but their dad's was much scarier.

Alison was still yelling.

"I can't believe you, Dad! Does mum even know? How could you –"

"Alison!" It was his Professor Snape voice, dangerous enough to silence most first-years with a single syllable.

"See! Told you," Callie whispered. Their mum looked more sad than angry.

"That's _enough_, Alison! Apologise to your father, then not another word!" their father rapped out.

Alison turned on him,chin thrust forward, hair springing into a tangle.

"Are you talking as my teacher or my pretend-uncle?" she hissed. "Because I don't care if you give me detentions with Filch till the end of the year! And anyway, I have five real uncles –"

"Six," Ginny murmured. "You have six."

"Real uncles who count more than you!"

"She's certainly a Weasley, with that temper," Ginny muttered, lips curling wryly. But Callie and Cammie were sharing apprehensive glances. It was never wise to talk back to dad. Not in his role as teacher or family elder, pretend or otherwise.

Professor Snape looked down his hooked nose at his friend's daughter as if she was a very small, very slimy worm not even worth chopping up.

"Come here, Miss Wales." His voice was as quiet and sharp as one of his knives.

Alison gulped and took a step towards him.

"Closer. Yes, that will do." He waited till she looked up under her eyelashes at him. "You will not speak to your father or myself in that tone again."

She bit her lip.

"No, sir. Sorry, sir," she muttered, then raised her head defiantly. "But he lied to me! You both lied to me! And Aunt Hermione lied too."

"We did not. Merely, we didn't tell you. It was your father's story to share and he judged the time not right."

"Lying by omission is just as much lying," she recited. "You said so when Cammie and I –"

"Shh," hissed her partner-in-crime. "Don't remind him!"

One darkling glance silenced his daughter. He turned back to her friend and raised an eyebrow.

"My memory does not need refreshing, but perhaps yours does. I expect three feet from you by the first day of term on the difference between falsification and keeping confidences," he said dryly. "I suggest you start immediately. Your father and your aunt need half-an-hour without the dubious pleasure of your company. We _will_ discuss this with you – and your sisters – later."

As Alison was about to pass through the door after her friends, he added, "By the way, you may have those detentions you were so eager for. Not with Filch, I think. Professor Longbottom has been looking around for a volunteer for such trifling jobs as raking manure and grooming the Tentacula. Report to him the first day of term." He glanced at his friend. "With your permission, of course, Adam."

"I shouldn't dream of interfering in school matters."

Alison stared at the Professor. He was putting her in detention with her uncle? And her uncle – _her_ uncle! – was by far the most approachableteacher in the school. It wouldn't be hard to ask him all sorts of things about her family and her dad's schooldays. She glanced at her dad then. He looked so small and sad and tired. She ran back in to give him a hug.

"Thanks, Daddy," she said and, glancing at Cammie's dad, added, "Professor."

There was a silence after she left. Ginny was glaring at each of them in turn, her lips pressed tight and thin.

Adam sighed.

"I don't know how you do that, Severus. It must be so useful."

"Moderately," Severus sighed in turn, walking over to stand by him. "It works better on other people's children than my own." He looked around for Hermione and, finding she had come to stand next to him, laid his hand on her arm in a rare public show of affection. "Do you want us to stay?"

"No, we don't!" Ginny said instantly.

"I wasn't asking you. Adam?"

Ginny glowered, her hand on her wand.

"I thought you were my friends!" she burst out. "How could you, Hermione? And after Neville and I stuck up for you through everything! How long? How long have you been lying to me?"

Hermione met her gaze squarely.

"I've known about Adam for about six years. Since Cammie and Alison started infant school together, just as I told you. And you must see that it wasn't my secret to tell."

"Bollocks!" Ginny spat. "He's my brother!"

"Was your brother," Percy interpolated.

Hermione took a deep breath.

"Ginny, please listen –"

"Why are you taking his side? Why can't you just stay out of it?"

"Because you've always had a tendency to hex first and ask later." Hermione shot a pointed look at Ginny's wand hand. "And because you might forget that Adam hasn't carried a wand in two decades."

"Stop calling him Adam! He's Percy; my prat brother Percy Weasley, that joined the Ministry and quarrelled with all of us and got himself k-killed in a ridiculous accident."

She'd cried very few times in her life. This was one; Percy's funeral another. She scrubbed angrily at her face after the first few drops and glared at Adam, who was staring at the floor, his hands clenched and his mouth set.

"Why are you being such a stubborn idiot?" she demanded. "It's such a long time ago. All you have to do is ask and I'd forgive you."

"How very magnanimous," he said bitterly. "I don't need your forgiveness. I never did. I had a right to think and feel differently to the rest of you and I don't have anything to apologise for."

"What about those horrible things you said to Dad?" she challenged.

He stood up straighter and tilted his chin up.

"Our father was impulsive and irresponsible and he left all the work of being a grown-up and a parent to Mum. And now that you're a parent, you know that too."

"He was our father. You should have respected him."

"Maybe I would have if he'd ever respected me. Or if I hadn't seen him breaking the law, abusing the public trust, misusing his position to carry out his own agenda. I worked at the Ministry; I know he did all those." For the sake of the Order; for Dumbledore; or just to feed his obsession with all things Muggle.

"You haven't changed, have you? Still the same stuffed shirt niggling over your narrow interpretation of the rules –"

"No, I haven't changed. I'm still the brother you didn't want. This is rather pointless, isn't it?" His eyes blazed and he veiled them quickly.

"You're wrong! Hermione, why didn't you ever tell him how wrong he was?"

"Ginny –" Hermione came towards her with hands outstretched and lips slightly pursed.

Ginny evaded her and turned on her heel.

"See if I ever talk to you again! Traitor!" she flung over her shoulder as she slammed her way out.

The three left in the room looked at each other.

"That went well," Severus remarked sourly. "I suppose you'd like to leave, Adam, before she comes back with reinforcements. What would you like us to tell them?"

"Sorry. I never meant to ruin your lives too," Percy said wretchedly.

"My life is hardly ruined if a few less Gryffindors talk to me," Severus murmured, with a provocative look at his wife. "I'd count it rather a benefit."

She smacked his arm. He caught her hand and curled his fingers around it. Their eyes met.

"Nasty, disagreeable man," she said pleasantly, making a face at him."What if they don't talk to me?" His fingers squeezed gently and she turned to their friend. "Don't worry about it, Adam. Ginny's angry now, but she'll cool down."

"That makes it worse in a way," he replied. "Are you saying that if I'd stuck it out, things would have changed? We'd all have made friends again?"

She shook her head and sighed.

"I hope we can do better than we did as hot-headed teenagers. We're all older and wiser now. Even the twins have grown up a bit. I don't blame you for leaving; nor for asking our silence. Both were your decisions to make. If I got caught in the middle, it's not your fault, any more than it is Ginny's."

"What do you wish us to tell them?Are you willing to see them, to hear from them, to tell them about your life?" Severus probed.

"If they want to speak to me, they can do it in your presence, in this house. I won't speak to them elsewhere. You can tell them the basic facts, but if they use them to find me and harass my family, I'll file a complaint to the Ministry for using magic in front of Muggles."

"I'm not sure that will be enough to stop Ron or the twins," Hermione warned. "They haven't changed that much."

"I didn't think they would, but at least this time I'm not alone," He paused for thought and added, "I suppose I can talk to my mother if she wants to see me. And if you don't have time, I might accept Bill as their spokesman if he agrees to my conditions."

"I have time."

Percy forced a smile.

"Thanks. Thanks for standing by me. For everything."

He left then and Severus turned to his wife.

"I've a few things to do at Hogwarts before dinner." Except for the long summer break when the school closed each year, he usually divided his time between school and home during holidays. "But I suspect we'd better face the imminent Weasley invasion together. I can spare two hours."

"That should be enough time for them to have been and – I hope –gone. But we'd better speak to our girls first."

"I noticed you warded the room after they left. Have they brought another set of Extendible Ears into the house?" One eyebrow raised, straight firm mouth; he wasn't angry yet but just on the verge.

"Just a precaution." She smiled. "Callie's too much like you when it comes to finding out what you don't want her to know."

A little while later, they had further proof of that.

"I knew something was strange," Callie admitted. "Of course, I saw the resemblance between Uncle Adam and Laura Weasley's dad. I'm not stupid." She and Laura didn't speak, but she'd seen her buying school supplies with her father once. Most of the other Weasley dads were either chunkier or balding.

Hermione acknowledged this with a sigh. Ron, alone of his brothers, refused to set foot in their house and had managed to imbue his children with some of his hostility, despite his wife's influence.

"Indeed?" Severus glared at his daughter. "And yet you allowed a Weasley to meet him when you knew there was a secret?"

"I never thought it was anything like this," she said candidly. Candour from Callie was always a danger sign. "To tell you the truth –"

"Yes, do tell us the truth," her father said grimly.

"Aunt Ginny told me once that they had a much older cousin who was an accountant. I thought maybe Uncle Adam was his son. Frank said – Never mind that."

She peeped up through long eyelashes at her father. He gave her a measuring look, ignoring Cammie's muttered, "You never told me."

"You didn't think we might be trying to keep them apart? That we might have good reason to do so?" He gave her the scowl that set students cowering and she sent back a deprecating look.

"I thought the grown-ups knew and the secrecy was just so us kids wouldn't find out," she explained.

"And you thought you could force a revelation by engineering a meeting?" Hermione eyed her older daughter sternly. "Honestly, Callie! Why didn't you ask?"

"You wouldn't have told!" She watched her father warily. Timing was everything in an argument with Dad, she thought. If you waited too long to placate him, he could hold a grudge for the longest time. "I'm sorry, OK? But if you'd just stop treating me like a child, I'd have known to delay Aunt Ginny till you could get Uncle Adam safely away." Her sister and mother discreetly rolled their eyes at each other. Callie was the expert in coaxing the difficult, but occasionally delightful, man they all adored. "I'm fourteen, dad, not four!" she added.

"Go on. Do explain how this is all our fault and you're completely innocent of any wrongdoing," Severus growled.

"Never mind that. Now that we know this much, you can't mean to keep the rest secret!" She tilted her head sideways and widened her eyes. It was the trick she'd been using to defuse his temper since before she knew she was doing it.

"No doubt it would only precipitate another disaster caused by your attempts to ferret out more information," he grumbled.

He wasn't going to blow, Cammie thought. It was safe to join in.

"So you are going to tell us, right?" He turned a dark-eyed glower on her. It had no effect.

"Much safer," Callie encouraged.

His lips thinned.

"You know the bare bones of it. Why don't you tell us what you've deduced."

"Uncle Adam is really Frank's Uncle Percy, but he went into hiding in the Muggle world and changed his name and everything. And he didn't tell his family," she said.

"Was it the war?" Cammie interrupted. "Did he go undercover and then not know it was safe to come back?"

"Don't be silly, of course it wasn't. D'you think Mum and Dad wouldn't have told him?" Callie said scornfully, resuming the argument that had been interrupted by Alison's departure and their parents' entry. "They didn't seem very happy to see each other, did they? I bet he had a fight with his family and ran off in a huff. He was a Gryffindor, wasn't he? Weasleys always are."

"But he wouldn't have had to become a Muggle, just because of that! That's just silly," Cammie argued.

"Don't judge when you don't know all the facts," her father said. "Gryffindors!" he muttered under his breath.

Hermione cleared her throat meaningfully. He glanced sideways at her accusing eyes and sighed.

"I forgot I was at home," he apologised.

She gave him the sceptical look that reminded him she knew very well what part he'd played in the war and just how long he'd have lasted if such forgetfulness had ever been a habit. Callie and Cammie's eyes met and both looked down to hide their smiles. Their dad was so transparent sometimes.

"He hadn't been getting on with his family for a long time by then," he told them."They supported Potter and he was a Ministry man. He moved out of home the year Voldemort returned, but he didn't leave for the Muggle world until a week after Voldemort was defeated."

"Was it because he didn't want to admit that he was wrong?" Cammie asked.

"It wasn't that simple," he explained. "The Ministry and the Order both made mistakes. He still believes he was right and there is something to be said for his point of view. But those details don't concern you. He decided it was better to make a clean break than to live on the edge of their lives as the family outcast. The family connection kept returning to haunt him. The Ministry tried to use him as a bridge – the other Weasleys were very close to Potter, of course – and some of his brothers were not very forgiving."

"You mean the Wizard Wheezes brothers, don't you? Were they like their kids?" Hexing Slytherin robes pink had been just the first of many pranks from David and Jonathon, while Kerry and Kelly were legendary for having charmed the Hall ceiling to snow feathers their second year.

"Worse!" their mum said, sharing a reminiscent glance with their dad. "Who do you think made that bit of swamp on the fifth floor? It used to cover the whole corridor and Filch had to punt students across it for weeks!"

"Still, it was silly for Uncle Adam to just up and leave," Cammie said thoughtfully. "I'd never do that."

"I hope we'd never make you feel you had to," her mother replied. "You know how miserable it is if we argue and it's three to one against you. In his family, it was usually eight against one, with him as the one."

**A/N In canon, the trio seems to stay at school during Easter, but that doesn't mean everyone does. Most boarding-schools do send students home then.**

**Character list**

**Severus Snape (Deputy Head, Slytherin Head, Potions master) m Hermione Granger  
ch:  
Calendula Marigold (Callie) - 3rd year  
Camomile Aster (Cammie) - 1st year**

**Gerrilyn (Gerry) Nott and Tavia (Tavie) Greengrass are Callie's best friends.**

**Adam Wales (aka Percy Weasley) m Amanda (Manda)  
ch:  
Alison - 1st year, age 12  
twins Amalie (Am) and Adelaide (Addie) - age 11  
Anthea (Thea) - age 10  
Abigail - age 9  
Aglaia (Aggie) - age 7 1/2  
Amy-Rose - age 6  
Alfrida - age 5  
twins Arielle and Aislynn - 3 1/2**

**Molly Weasley**

**Bill Weasley m Fleur Delacour  
ch:  
Thierry - Head Boy, 7th year  
Louise - 5th year, Beauxbatons  
Jeanne-Paule - 3rd year Beauxbatons  
Julien - 2nd year**

**Charlie Weasley m  
ch:  
Marianna - 6th year, Prefect  
Martin - 5th year, Quidditch team  
Charlotte - 1st year  
Natalie - age 10**

**Fred m  
ch:  
Kerry - 4th year, Quidditch team  
Jonathon - 1st year**

**George  
ch:  
Kelly - 4th year, Quidditch team  
David - 1st year**

**Ron Weasley m Susan Bones  
ch:  
twins Michael Jacob and Diana - 6th year  
Laura Johanna - 3rd year**

**Neville Longbottom (Herbology Professor) m Ginny Weasley  
ch:  
Stephen - 5th year, Prefect  
Frank - 3rd year**

**Minerva McGonagall (Head) m Amory Marchant (Gryffindor Head, Defense Professor)**

**Harry Potter m Hannah Abbott**


	3. Ask Him Politely

REUNION

ASK HIM POLITELY

**Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

**Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste and Cecelle. **

Hermione shooed her daughters out and hastily conjured an extra sofa while Severus greeted the scowling group of six Weasley men – one by marriage – and one woman who had just rudely Apparated into his living room. Perhaps they would find undeserved politeness more unsettling than the blasting they were asking for.

"Good afternoon, Ginevra, Neville, Frederick, George, Charlie, William."

Apart from the first two, they were infrequent visitors, but familiar enough to be on a first-name basis. In general, he preferred more formality, but there was no gainsaying his wife's argument that it was preferable to know which "Mr Weasley" one was talking to or about. He turned a sarcastic eye on the remaining visitor. Hermione's ex-best friend had refused to have anything to do with her since her marriage. It was a satisfaction to watch him eat his words.

"Ronald too? How – unexpected."

Ron scowled, taking the point. He was hot-tempered, not thick.

"I'm not here to talk to you. I want to talk to my brother," he said, his hands clenching and unclenching.

"Where is he?" asked one twin. "We want to see him so we can –"

"– tell him off properly," the other one finished.

"I wouldn't recommend that," their host replied calmly, sitting down again and motioning them all to sit likewise. "It's telling him off that precipitated this situation in the first place."

By then, Hermione had Accioed two jugs of juice, a platter of Chocolate Wheatens and nine cups and saucers to the coffee table, in the forlorn hope that serving afternoon tea might ease things. She perched on the broad arm of her husband's chair, leaving the other armchair to Charlie, who promptly sprawled across it. The remaining visitors had squeezed themselves onto the two sofas, three and three, the twins and Ron on one and Ginny, Neville and Bill on the other. Ignoring the refreshments, they glowered at their hosts.

"It's funny, in a way," Hermione said, before they could start. "It was him always telling you what to do that made you resent him, but you all thought you had the right to tell him what to do, even after he grew up. And you even think you still can, after you haven't seen him for twenty years and he has a family of his own!"

"That's his fault, but he –"

"It's everyone's fault," she interrupted Ginny. "Every one of you – except you, Neville – your parents and, yes, him too. If any of you had been willing to bend, you wouldn't be in this mess now."

Mouths opened to speak, but Severus was first.

"Open those heads to a little thought for once and consider what it is you want. If it's to go on fighting with him, then by all means continue as you are. You will not achieve anything other than to justify his decision to leave. If you want to be a part of his life now, you'll have to accept that he has a right to be different from you. He always did."

Ron and the twins had to be wrestled down. Neville's soft "No" in his wife's ear kept her quiet, but she glared equally at her hosts, who sat waiting in grim-mouthed silence, and at Charlie and Bill for interfering. It wasn't often that she agreed with Ron, but this was one of the times.

"You've no right!" Ron was yelling, as Bill held him back. "You slimy snake, you've no right to stop us talking to our brother!"

Hermione's fists clenched and her eyes darted from her husband to his accuser. She took a deep breath, opened her mouth as if to speak, then snapped it shut and put a shaking hand on her husband's shoulder. His sideways glance was enough to steady her, but she left her hand there and he didn't shake it off.

"There's so much we don't understand," Bill said, after the shouting had subsided and everyone was seated again, looking slightly rumpled. "For twenty years, we've thought he was dead. How? Why?"

Their erstwhile Professor traced one long finger around his thin mouth before answering. They glared impatiently at him.

"He transfigured his fingernail clippings into a replica of his form so that it would hold his magical signature," he explained at last. "Then he left his wand beside it to reinforce the spell. That's why no one detected that it wasn't him."

"That's ingenious," said Fred. "I didn't know –"

"– the pompous prat had it in him," his twin continued.

"Amazing!" they said together.

Hermione sighed and shook her head at them, but left the obvious response to her husband.

"You didn't know your brother at all. If you had, you wouldn't be here now, asking why."

"And you did, I suppose," jeered Ron.

"No more than any other Gryffindor hothead, but I've come to know him better in the last six years." Severus held Ron's gaze till the younger man looked down. "Our children are friends. His oldest daughter, Alison, is the same age as Cammie."

"Hard to think of Perce being human enough to have kids," Ginny said. Neville laid a restraining hand on her arm. She ignored it. "Is Alison really his? She doesn't look the least bit like him."

"Most of their children favour his wife. Amanda was born in Jamaica," said her host.

"Most? He must have –"

"– at least three then."

Severus scowled at the twins under frowning brows. If they'd still been his students, he'd have given himself the pleasure of dissecting their characters – for their own benefit, of course. If they kept interrupting him, he still might. They'd always been a rowdy, reckless lot, the Weasleys, especially the younger siblings, though Percy and Bill had been somewhat tolerable and Charlie a not unpleasant colleague before he returned to his dragons.

"He has ten," he told them, leaning his head back and looking them slowly up and down.

"Ten!" said Charlie and was immediately echoed by three siblings. "Ten? Pompous Perce? He can't have! He'd never stand the chaos!"

"All girls; two sets of twins," supplied Hermione helpfully.

"The older twins, Amalie and Adelaide, bear the most resemblance to Adam," her husband continued. "They'll be –"

"Adam? Who's Adam and what does –"

"– he have to say to anything?" Again George finished Fred's thought.

"Your brother has been living as a Muggle under the name of Adam Wales, for the last twenty years. He joined an engineering firm as an analyst and worked his way up to become Chief Operating Officer five years ago."

"Whatever that is," Bill said.

"It means he manages the day-to-day operations of the entire company. He's one step below top place," Hermione explained.

"That'd be right!" muttered Ron. "Always was as ambitious as all get-out, the git!"

"You would think so, of course. You never had his determination or capacity for application," Severus retorted.

"Never wanted 'em." Ron's only ambitions had been on a broom.

"Indeed." Severus sneered, resisting the temptation to point out that was why he'd never got further than third-string Seeker on a third-rate team. He didn't have time today. "As I was saying, the older twins will be entering Hogwarts this September. After them come Anthea, Abigail, Aglaia, Amy-Rose – the only other one with red hair – and Alfrida, then the younger twins, Arielle and Aislynn, who'll be turning four in August."

Seven jaws dropped.

"Blimey!" breathed Ron. "How are we supposed to remember all that?"

Severus merely smirked. Ten names was nothing to a teacher. He was accustomed to learning five times that with every new first year class.

"It's just like Percy to give his kids names that all start with the same letter," mused Charlie. "He always was the sort of kid who liked everything in neat, straight rows."

"He could have thought of us and made them consecutive letters of the alphabet," complained Ron.

"Hardly," Severus reminded them. "He's spent the last twenty years trying not to think of you at all."

"Did he succeed?" Bill asked, looking troubled.

"He might tell you, if you ask him politely."

Ron jumped up again.

"Politely!" he stormed. "We don't need your advice how to talk to our brother, you overgrown bat!"

"No doubt that explains why for twenty years you haven't had the chance," Severus shot back.

"How's that your business?" Ginny's eyes flashed. Four of her brothers chimed in with similar plaints. Her husband looked across at Severus with a troubled frown.

"It might be better to teach by example than precept," he suggested mildly.

Their eyes met. Severus flushed, his eyelids lowering briefly, his lips pursing. He had come to respect Neville. There was steel under that softness and the younger man's rare reproofs were all the more effective for their subtlety.

"It's my business because Adam has made it my business," he explained, gentling his tone. "He has asked me to be present at any discussions you might wish to have with him."

"Anyone would think he hated us!" said Ron bitterly. "First he walked out on us, then he let us think he was dead, now he won't even face us without a bodyguard!"

"He doesn't hate you; he loves you. That's why he can't forgive you," Hermione said.

He'd been like a McGonagall peg in a Weasley hole, she thought glumly, and they'd all just kept trying to cram him in and cut off the bits that didn't fit. And he was as stubborn as they were – that was one Weasley trait he did inherit, along with Weasley temper and Weasley courage –so he'd kept trying to do it back.

"That doesn't even make sense!" said Ginny. "If he loved us, why did he leave?"

"Because it hurt too much when you kept pushing him away."

"We didn't!" Ginny looked like her mother in a temper.

Hermione met her gaze squarely. There was a lot she hadn't noticed at the time, but she'd had years to mull it over.

"Didn't you? It was Percy who noticed something was wrong in your first year, even before the first attack, only of course, he didn't have a clue what it was. He made you drink Pepperup, remember? And he told you off, Ron, because he thought you were the one making her cry. You told him he just wanted a better chance at Head Boy!"

Ron looked uncomfortable, but he was quick to defend himself.

"Well, he did."

"It was Percy who noticed the twins jumping out to frighten her and told them off."

The twins nodded wisely.

"He always liked telling us off –"

"Used to be his favourite activity."

Hermione sighed. It was hard getting the twins to take anything seriously.

"He was trying to help you all in his own way. And you didn't want to know him! You couldn't even say his name without attaching something rude."

"So you're saying it's our fault he left?" George said.

"I guess we did tease him a bit," Fred mused.

"A bit? A bit?" Hermione spluttered, her hand digging into her husband's shoulder. He cleared his throat gently. She startled and guiltily released him.

"Well, all right, a lot then. But it was only joking."

"He never could take a joke, Perce," Fred added.

"He always thought he knew everything! Always telling us what to do and trying to make himself look good," Ron complained.

"Remember the Triwizard second task," Hermione huffed, "and how Percy ran right into the water to fetch you, in front of the judges and the crowd and everyone? Was that just to look good?"

"S'pose not," Ron conceded reluctantly. "But honestly, you know what he was like. Always sniffing around trying to get us into trouble, criticising us and being a full-on pest."

"Yes, I know," Hermione said. "And he's still the same obsessed nitpicking pedant that he was then and his opinions haven't changed either. So I have to ask, are you sure you want him back?"

Ron stared at her.

"Course we do. He's our brother, isn't he?"

"He was your brother then, but you still ran when you saw him coming. You didn't like him the way he was – and he can't be anything else without losing himself."

"That's all rubbish," Ron snorted. "It wasn't anything we did! He was just jealous of Harry, that was all!"

Hermione looked at him and he looked back. Seventeen years he'd been refusing to talk to her and now that they were face-to-face, for a moment the world dropped away and she was fifteen again, trying to persuade Ron out of a jealous rage as the Goblet spat out a fourth name for the Triwizards. He and Percy had been so much alike in their jealousy, their thirst for recognition, their shame at being poorer than most other students, only Percy had been more outspoken and less lazy. And that was not something she ever planned to point out, no matter how irritating Ron got.

"And that was entirely unreasonable, of course," she said instead. "Why would he be jealous of a stranger that you all liked better, that you all trusted more, that you all chose over him again and again?"

"It wasn't – He chose the Ministry over us!" Ron protested.

Hermione chewed on her lower lip. They still didn't get it, she thought; he shouldn't have needed to choose.

"He went where he was wanted; it's what people do," she said. It was what she'd done. She'd married Severus and Ron had vowed never to forgive her. But she was only a friend. Adam/Percy was his brother.

Charlie stabbed a stubby, calloused finger at her.

"If he felt so wanted there, why did he leave?"

"By the time he left, he was fed up with the whole wizarding world. He wanted his kids to be Squibs, Charlie, and not just because he didn't want to be discovered. He wanted to go somewhere he could be his own man, where he'd be judged on himself not his family."

"Too ashamed to come back and admit he was wrong? We told him the Ministry only wanted to use him to get at us." Ginny's eyes blazed.

And that was so like a Weasley, though Hermione wearily. Strong, determined, steadfast – and so inflexible.

"Because why would they want a dedicated, hard-working, conscientious employee for any other reason than to get at his family?" She gave them all an upward glance under lifted brows. Ron glowered back at her.

"You're on his side? How can you – You know what Fudge and Scrimgeour and Umbridge were like! And now you're defending them? Snape's turned you against us!"

"Shut it, Ron!" The order came from several throats, but Hermione continued alone.

"You're just too blinkered to see that the truth's usually somewhere in the middle! He got the promotion because he deserved it _and _because they wanted to use him. Both together, not either or!"

"Deserved it? He was such a prat he didn't even notice his boss was Imperiused!"

"And no one at Hogwarts even noticed we had a Death Eater teacher for a whole year!" Hermione replied. Her husband cleared his throat and she added hastily, "Almost no one."

"Well, but Moody – Everyone just expected him to act nutters, didn't they?"

"She's right, though," Charlie said. "I'd never really thought about it before – well, I wasn't here for most of it – but if it was so easy to detect Imperius, all those Death Eaters wouldn't have got away with pretending they'd been under it in the first war."

The thoughtful silence that followed was broken by Ron.

"How can you be on his side? You've gone mad and it's all Snape's fault!"

"It's not a question of sides," she said, pretending not to hear that last bit. Ron was still Ron, just like Percy was still Percy, name change, lifestyle change and all. "All the grievances you had against him and he had against you are still there. Worse, in fact, for having festered unexamined for twenty years. It won't work to just barge in and tell him what you think about him, even if you hex him into silence so you can say it without being shouted down."

"I suppose he'd report us to his precious Ministry," Ginny said bitterly.

"Not his Ministry now," Hermione pointed out. "You're the one still working for the Ministry, Ginny; Adam's been a Muggle for twenty years. If you come on too strong, he's likely to sell up and move even further away."

"He wouldn't do that and lose everything he's been working for," Charlie argued.

"It didn't stop him twenty years ago, though, did it?" Neville said.

Two decades of spying and three of staff-meetings had schooled Severus in faking patience, but his tolerance for Weasleys was rapidly approaching zero. In any case, duty called him back to the school. It was time to bring the meeting to a conclusion. He caught his wife's eye in a combination question and apology. She gave a tiny nod.

"If you wish to reconcile with your brother, you'll need to exercise patience," he said. "A full-scale family meeting like this one will only trigger the very memories you presumably wish to supplant. I recommend starting with no more than two of you at a time, in order of age."

"Bill and me then," said Charlie with satisfaction, as his younger siblings loudly disagreed.

Severus watched them, a smirk twitching the side of his mouth. Then he abruptly stood up in a billowing sweep of black robes, creating a surprised hush just long enough for his parting words.

"No doubt your mother will have something to say about that."

He nodded to his wife, whose mouth was twisting this way and that in an effort not to burst out laughing as six Weasley mouths dropped open, and to Neville, whose amusement was better hidden, then flung a pinch of Floo powder into the fireplace.

"Hogwarts!" And he was gone.

They stared at each other. Hermione was the first to speak.

"You didn't tell her yet, did you? Or she'd have been here louder than any of you."

Bill lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck and sighed.

"It's not that easy. You know Percy was always her favourite."

"One of her favourites," corrected Charlie. "It was always you and Perce."

"Don't be silly. I was nothing like –"

"Twelve O.W.L.s each," Fred chimed in. "Top-grade N.E.W.T.s –"

"Prefects, Head Boys –" George added. They reached for biscuits at the same time and took a bite together.

"You two were much too perfect for the rest of us," Ron agreed.

"But Perce was worse," Ginny said kindly.

"Not by much," Charlie put in, pouring himself a juice.

"But enough –"

"All things considered." The twins again. Hermione often wondered how their wives, Katie and Candice, put up with them.

Bill rolled his eyes.

"You're just jealous I get to see him before any of you," he said, refusing to be drawn. He turned to Hermione. "What's he like now? You said he hadn't changed, but he must have changed a bit. Ten kids! Does he still bring his work home and yell at anyone who disturbs him?"

"Manda wouldn't let him get away with that. She's very good for him, I think. No, he buries himself in his work all day; then he comes home and buries himself in his family."

"Is he happy?" asked Neville.

Hermione picked up a cup and ran her finger around the rim, staring at the emptiness inside. It was a good question, but she'd have preferred it to come from a sibling rather than a brother-in-law. Did they understand at all? She looked up and at them with a small shrug.

"As happy as anyone can be who's cut out a large part of himself."


	4. Tough Tasks

REUNION

TOUGH TASKS

**Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

**Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste and Cecelle. **

"I don't have anything to say to you." Ginny's mouth was a thin, straight line and her eyes burned.

""Yes, I quite get that." Hermione cast a swift upward glance at her friend, then resumed studying her fingernails. She'd expected this, but that didn't make it hurt any less. She gave a resolute swallow. "But it'll be a lot easier to tell your mum about Adam –"

"Percy!"

"About Adam if we decide beforehand exactly how we're going to start. Unless you want to go in there and just blurt it out?"

Ginny scowled and set down her cup with a thump. Some of her tea sloshed into the saucer.

Funny how it was always the women who got lumbered with the really tough tasks, Hermione thought. It hadn't taken long for the Weasley men to come to the conclusion that the obvious choice for family messenger to their mother should be their sister.

"You're the baby of the family," Bill had pointed out.

"And the one mum's most likely to listen to," Ron had agreed.

"She'd only think it was –"

"One of our tricks, if we tried," the twins had pointed out.

But it was Charlie who'd made the unanswerable argument.

"Of course, it has to be you, Gin," he'd said, pointing his biscuit at her. "You're the only one of us who's actually seen him with your own eyes and spoken to him since he died – since he disappeared. When she stops yell – er, when she calms down a bit, she'll have all sorts of questions and none of us can answer them."

Ginny had scowled at her brothers and even cast a look of entreaty at her husband, but he'd just shrugged his inability to rescue her. Besides, he thought his time was better spent at school interrogating Severus privately.

"Fine!" she'd snapped. "But I'm not going alone!"

And a very little further discussion had ended with Hermione being dragooned into going along as her reluctant associate. After all, she'd been in contact with their brother for several years and could answer all those other questions their mother was sure to ask about one new daughter-in-law and ten unknown grandchildren – and a son whose adult life was a mystery to the family he'd left behind. Severus could have done it too, if he hadn't taken his convenient absence before the meeting got this far.

She couldn't blame him for that, not reasonably, anyhow. He did have school business and some of it at least was going to be the necessary hosing-down of tensions in the school and in her old house when the teenage generation of Weasleys found out that his younger daughter's best friend was a child of the family outcast. Hermione wasn't feeling very reasonable just now. She tilted her chin at her best friend and sat up straighter.

"You've had six years to plan what to say," Ginny accused, staring at the opposite wall. "Haven't you thought of anything yet?"

"All I thought about was how to tell you. I never expected to have to tell your mother too," Hermione said.

Ginny hunched a shoulder.

"Maybe you should have. You might have thought twice about facing _her_ with the news six years late."

"It wouldn't have made any difference." Hermione took a long breath and let it out slowly. "I don't blame you for being angry. I would be too in your shoes. But I couldn't have done any different. If you'd only listen –"

Ginny bounced up and glowered down at her.

"I don't want to talk to you. Let's just go and you can tell me and Mum together."

Hermione got up too and began clearing the table. After a moment's hesitation, Ginny joined in.

"I will, if you insist," Hermione said, gathering up the cups, "but I really think it would go better if you heard a bit more first. Don't you want to know about his life as a Muggle? Wouldn't you rather ask your questions without being out-shouted or overruled? _All_ your questions, without interruptions."

Her friend scowled.

"I can't believe you've done that to me," she said, carrying a stack of plates to the kitchen. It would have been quicker to Leviosa them but it was easier to talk with hands and eyes occupied. "After all these years we've been friends. Didn't you think you owed me more than that?"

"I wish it was that simple." Hermione turned on the tap and rolled up her sleeves. "I wish it was only about what I owed you. If you could have seen him, Ginny!"

""If you'd given me the chance to see him, you mean!"

"I couldn't. He begged me not to tell. If I hadn't promised to keep his secret, he was going to up stakes and leave again – this time to some faraway corner of the world where you'd never find him." Hermione put the first cup into the drainer and started on another.

"Bollocks!" Ginny picked up a teatowel and began drying. "It takes time to move a family, even with magic – and you say he wasn't using any. He couldn't have run away before you told us. We'd have stopped him."

Hermione's busy hands stilled momentarily.

"Stopped him? How do you think you could have stopped him? Petrificus? It wasn't a snap decision, you know, when he left everything behind. He'd been preparing for eighteen months."

"Eighteen months!" There was a long pause as Ginny counted back eighteen months from her brother's supposed death and saw in her mind's eye horn-rimmed glasses dripping mashed parsnip. She swallowed. "I don't believe you! He was the Ministry's poster-child!"

"Eighteen months," Hermione repeated firmly. "He'd been visiting your Mum's accountant cousin for a year and a half, so he could practise living in the Muggle world. He'd prepared a false identity, with certificates and qualifications, bank account, credit card, even a job to walk into, and he'd researched a dozen different ways of faking his death."

Ginny chewed on the inside of her cheek.

"But if we'd told him – that we didn't want him to go –"

"Is that what you'd have told him? Because it's not what you told us just now. Not one of you said how much you'd missed him or how sorry you were for having driven him away. You were angry with him, not with yourselves."

"He hurt us. How could he think we wouldn't care if he died, how could he?" Ginny's hands tightened on the cup she was drying. She put it down with cautious exactitude and stared at it as if it might suddenly fly across the room without a whisper of a spell.

Hermione gave her a sidelong glance and placed another dripping cup upside-down to drain. If only there was a way to soften what she had to say. Truth hurt – both the teller and the listener.

"Perhaps you should ask yourselves that question before you ask him. Because I promise you that that is what he thought. He told me that none of you wanted him; that you'd never wanted him. And when I looked back and remembered what I'd seen of your family – I could see why he thought so."

"Of course we wanted him! He might be the world's biggest prat, but he's still our brother!"

"You'll have to find a more convincing way of telling him than that, Gin," Hermione said gently. "That's exactly what you told him this afternoon. He didn't seem too impressed with it, did he?"

Ginny knuckled her eyes with an angry swipe.

"How dare you sit in judgement on my family? After all we've done for you!"

"That's the last thing I'd want to do. I'm only trying to make sure you get it right this time. Because there's nothing I want more than for your family to be healed. And I really think there's nothing he wants more either."

Brown eyes met brown. Ginny's mouth trembled.

"Do you think so? He told me he wasn't my brother. He said it over and over again. And that he had nothing to say to me, now or ever."

"I thought that was rather a hopeful sign, actually, because he forgot to call you Mrs Longbottom. Did he used to call you Ginevra Molly Weasley when you were kids and he was mad at you?"

"Not really. It was mainly Mum who called me that." Ginny shook her head and her mouth twisted. "Mum. How could he do that to her? He must have known she still cared. She still sent him presents for birthdays and holidays and he sent them back."

"That quarrel he had with your dad hurt him much more than any of you ever guessed. And when she took your dad's side – I can't say any more without breaking confidences. But, Ginny, I really think you should leave that between them. You have enough hurdles on your own account without borrowing the rest of the family's."

Silence stretched too far and broke. Ginny's eyes narrowed to an accusing glare.

"You're very clever, aren't you? Every time I try to talk about how you've betrayed us, you keep changing the subject."

"I'm not trying to change the subject – Well, maybe I am. It isn't easy saying nothing while you call me all the names I've been calling myself over this for six years. I hate that I couldn't tell you sooner, but it wasn't my secret to tell."

"If you were really my friend –"

Hermione lifted a cup out of the water and watched the drops roll down its gleaming sides. She plunged it back in and scrubbed needlessly.

"That's what he said," she murmured. "'Please, Hermione, if you ever had any feelings of friendship for me at all…' I couldn't refuse him the only thing he's ever asked me."

"When did you ever have any feelings of friendship for him? You were always Ron's friend and then you were mine."

"Not always." She stacked the last plate in the drainer and pulled out the plug, adding as she watched the water gurgle down the sink, "When I started at Hogwarts, everyone hated me, especially Ron and Harry. It was almost an accident that we ever became friends. They saved me from a troll and I saved them from getting in trouble about it. If not for Percy, I think I'd have run away by then. He always found time to say something nice whenever he saw me. I owe him, Ginny."

"He was a Prefect then. It was his duty to be nice to firsties. And you know how devoted he always was to duty." And how much he harassed his younger siblings for being less so.

"Don't sneer at him for that. I know it's not much appreciated in your family – you like the twins' way better - but it's a good characteristic, not a bad one. He's reliable and responsible and kind. I wish you could have appreciated that in him the way you do in Neville."

"Neville's never obnoxious about it like Percy was."

That was because Neville was only a Weasley by marriage, not temperament. Hermione knew better than to point this out, however.

The man in question was, at that moment, sitting down in the headmistress's office between the Heads of Slytherin and Gryffindor house. He shifted slightly, to get his wooden leg in a more comfortable position. It was twenty years since he'd lost it in the final battle to a Dark-twisted variation of the Jellylegs Jinx that lived up to its name. Luckily it had only hit one knee and missed the rest of him as St Mungo's had been quite baffled.

Minerva's jaw had just dropped open.

"You mean that little friend of Cammie's is Percy Weasley's – _Percy's_ daughter? How could she be?"

A grim smile curled Severus's mouth.

"Perhaps he was more like his brothers than anyone suspected," he said. "He faked his death so efficiently that no one ever questioned it."

"_Percy?_ Prim and proper Percy break the law to –"

"There was no law-breaking, Minerva. He followed all the correct procedures for renouncing wizardry and filed all the papers in the appropriate places under a confidentiality charm. If anybody had thought of looking, they'd have found him. But he knew no one would."

Neville winced. Had Percy been waiting twenty years to see if his family would bother looking? No doubt he blamed their disinterest rather than his own competence for their failure to do so.

"I gather you've known about this for some time," said Minerva's husband, Amory, from Neville's other side.

"A little over six and a half years. Long enough to think of him more as Adam Wales than a Weasley."

"Miss Wales looks nothing like him, of course, but now that you mention this I do see a resemblance," Minerva said slowly. "Something about her air and seriousness. He was always a very old child."

"The very natural resemblance shared by most older children of large families with closely-spaced younger siblings," Severus said. "Alison was a toddler when her next siblings were born, just as he was. Twins too, by the way, though thankfully nothing like their twin uncles. By the time she started infants school, she had five little sisters and there are another four since."

"But why send her here? Did he want to be found?" Minerva asked.

"Circumstance. He hoped the question of a magical education would never arise. Then, when it all too evidently did, he hoped they would go through school unnoticed. After all, wizard parents and Muggle parents rarely meet each other."

"True wishes overriding conscious desires, perhaps?" Amory suggested.

Severus shrugged.

"I don't claim to speak for Adam's subconscious mind. However, he's asked me to speak for him in all matters involving Hogwarts and the magical world."

"In that case, it's for you to tell us how to proceed," Minerva said.

"Indeed. Hermione and I have given much thought to this matter." One corner of his mouth twitched. "Our conversations this year had become rather tediously repetitive," he admitted to his three close friends. "It will be a relief to start a new subject."

They smiled back.

"And what have you decided?" Neville asked.

"Hermione thought we should react quietly, but pre-emptively. The staff must know, but there should be no general announcements to the children. No doubt the news will escape, but we need not speed its publication. Adam has agreed that it's useless to try to keep his daughters from knowing their cousins, so Hermione has suggested a family meeting of all those currently at Hogwarts, under Amory's supervision. Perhaps Alison's next two sisters also, since they'll be starting here next year."

"Agreed," Amory said.

"You should be present too, Severus. They'll have questions and we can't expect a twelve year old to know all the answers, no matter how mature she is for her age," Neville added.

Minerva nodded.

"An excellent idea," she said crisply. "I'll leave it to the three of you then, Amory as Head of House, Severus as Adam's representative and, Neville, you, of course, representing his siblings and Molly. That should satisfy everyone. Shall we say the last day of Easter break? We can bring any absent children back to school one day early."

As they left Minerva's office, Neville gave a choke of laughter, hastily suppressed. Severus turned a raised eyebrow in his direction and he shrugged a little and dipped his head.

"Sorry, you may not think it very funny. I just suddenly remembered how much you disliked Gryffindors in my school days – And here you are, yet another of your friends turns out to be one. You're surrounded by us!"

"I am unhappily well aware of it." The Head of Slytherin pursed his lips and shook his head sourly. "All my hopes are on Callie."

Hermione and Ginny were, at that moment, knocking on the Burrow door. They did not have long to wait.

"Ginny! And Hermione dear, what a pleasant surprise! I was just about to make dinner. Shouldn't you be cooking for your own children right about now?" Molly said as she saw them. She stepped aside and waved them through the door, smoothing the embroidered apron that had been a birthday present from Bill's oldest ten years ago.

Hermione and Ginny answered together.

"I sent mine to Hogwarts for dinner today –"

"Mine were planning to send out for pizza when I spoke to them –"

"Pizza? Really, Ginny dear, why don't you feed them something a bit more healthy than that? I'd be happy to –"

"Something's come up, Mum," Ginny cut in. "Something important that we need to speak to you about."

Molly paled and took two steps back, her hands uplifted defensively.

"Important?" Her eyes darted between the two serious faces. "An accident? Who is it? They're not – not badly injured?"

"Not an accident, Mum!" Ginny cut in, horrified by her own ineptness. "Everyone's all right, I promise! In fact, even people you didn't know were all right are all right. Um –"

"Whatever do you mean by that?" Molly wondered, inviting them towards the kitchen and falling into step behind them. She gave a shaky laugh. "Goodness, Ginny, don't frighten me like that again. Sit down, both of you. Cup of tea? I've a fresh batch of cauldron cakes just baked." She put the kettle on as she spoke and opened the pantry door.

The two younger women sat down at the table, Ginny giving Hermione a rather helpless look. It wasn't often that she found herself at a loss, but then again, it wasn't often that you had to tell your mother she'd been mourning her favourite son twenty years for nothing.

Hermione tried to stop "I told you so" from flashing across her face. She pulled out a small photo album.

"You didn't tell me you had photos," Ginny grumbled.

"You wouldn't let me," Hermione whispered, then raised her voice to a normal tone. "We've just had tea at my house, thanks. Won't you sit down with us for a minute? There's been a rather surprising bit of news, but it's easier to show you than to tell you."

"Are you sure you won't have anything? An omelette? A glass of pumpkin juice?"

They shook their heads and she came rather reluctantly to the table and sat down between them.

"Oh!" she said, as Hermione opened the book. "They're frozen!"

"They're Muggle photos," Hermione explained. "That's why they don't move."

"Muggle photos! How interested Arthur would have been." Molly sighed wistfully. She'd been almost eight years a widow and still sometimes found herself listening for the sound of his footsteps, especially when she was too tired or busy to remember.

Ginny's hands clenched and her jaw set. Interested? He'd have been interested all right. She closed her eyes. Her father would never have the chance to sort things out with her brother now.

Hermione pointed to the first picture, the girls on their last day at primary school. The two dark heads leaned towards each other in grinning confederacy.

"Here's my daughter, Cammie, with her best friend, Alison."

"Lovely dear, but I don't understand why you're showing me. Is that the jumper I helped you knit for Callie when she was ten?"

"Yes, I believe it was," Hermione said, a little startled. She'd known how to knit since school, but she'd never been very good at it till she'd asked Molly for some lessons after Callie had complained that her mum's knitted hats looked just like the ones Dobby wore, only newer. "I'd forgotten that. But it's not the jumper that's important."

"No, dear? What is it then?"

Hermione turned the page.

"Here's Alison with some of her sisters. She's the oldest of ten girls."

Molly's eyes roamed rapidly over that one and the similar one on the facing page. Ginny' hands twisted together and she bit her lip.

"Yes, they're all very pretty, but what does it have to do with me?" Molly asked.

Hermione turned another page.

"Look at this next one. It's Alison with her father."

Molly glanced at it. Then her eyes grew wide and her face paled. Still she stared as the silence in the room grew louder and louder. Ginny slipped her hand over her mother's limp one and squeezed gently.

"He hasn't changed very much in twenty years, has he?" Hermione said at last.

"He looks – He looks just like Percy. I don't understand."

"He is Percy," Ginny said, a little too loudly.

"He's known as Adam Wales now," Hermione said. "He's been living as a Muggle all this time."

Molly's finger reached out and traced slowly over the familiar face. She gave a half-laugh.

"As a Muggle! How Arthur would have loved to hear about it! I don't suppose he knows how aeroplanes stay up. That was Arthur's dearest wish, remember Ginny?"

Ginny nodded. She couldn't speak. Hermione gulped.

"He does, actually. He's the second-in-charge at a firm of aeronautical engineers – that's people who design and build aeroplanes – and he can talk at tedious length about every aspect of their operation."

"Oh no, not tedious," Molly quavered as her eyes filled. "Arthur would never have found that tedious." She sniffed and rummaged for a handkerchief. "Have you told him yet? Does he know?"

"Arthur?" asked Hermione, rather puzzled. "You mean does Arthur know?" She exchanged a wild glance with an equally bewildered Ginny.

"No dear, Percy. Does he know who he really is? How did he come to lose his memory like that? And how excited he must be to find out he's part of such a large, happy family." Her mouth curved up between damp rosy cheeks. "He must be so happy."

**A/N Neville's wooden leg and Arthur's death are mentioned in earlier chapters of my "Everything" universe.**

**Confidentiality charms are non-canon.**

**The concept of Percy being Hermione's only student supporter those first few months is not completely canon, but is inspired by the patient way he answered all her questions at the Sorting Feast plus the times she subsequently defended him to Ron.**


	5. His Own Man

HIS OWN MAN

**Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

**Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste and Cecelle. **

Hermione opened her mouth to speak, then huffed out a long, helpless breath. Had Molly forgotten that Percy had refused to speak to anyone in his family for almost three years before his apparent death? Who did she think had faked his death, if not himself? On the other hand, that was all so long ago that it was no wonder Molly hadn't thought yet to question it. The fact of his supposedly accidental death was too firmly entrenched in her mind as the foundation on which subsequent events rested. Breaking things gently had just become harder.

While these thoughts raced through her mind, Ginny jumped in.

"He does remember. And he's just as unwilling to be part of our family as he was twenty years ago."

"Ginny, you're not helping," Hermione said.

Molly was looking at Ginny.

"What do you mean? When did he remember?"

"He never forgot." Ginny's hands were clenched and her mouth thin. "He's been hiding from us for the last twenty years. From everyone! Except for the Snapes; they knew."

"The Snapes? What – Are you – Those pictures!" Molly turned on Hermione, eyes blazing. "How long have you known he was alive?"

Hermione took a deep breath and gazed back, tight-lipped and straight-backed.

"About six years. We met by chance in a schoolyard, both picking up our kids from the same beginners' class."

"Hermione Jane Snape! You deceitful viper! How dare you sit here and tell me you've been keeping my son from me for six years!"

"I haven't been keeping him away from anyone. If he'd wanted to see you, he knew where you were." Hermione's hands clasped each other under the table.

"Of course he'd have wanted to see us!" Molly exclaimed. "That silly little quarrel couldn't still be bothering him after all this time. Why didn't you tell him that of course we forgive him?"

Hermione bit her lip. No way was she going to answer that he thought any forgiveness would have to flow in the other direction.

"That quarrel was just the last straw. He'd been unhappy for a long time by then," she said.

"He had nothing to be unhappy about, living at home, everything laid out for him, meals cooked, clothes washed – everything he ever wanted!"

Hermione shook her head.

"All he wanted was a family that appreciated him."

"He had that," the older woman said.

"He had a father who accused him of spying, older brothers who never asked him why he'd left or what would bring him back, and younger siblings who were glad to see him go."

"We weren't glad!" Ginny said. "We just – weren't very surprised that he'd chosen career over us. We knew he would."

Under the table, Hermione's fingers dug into her palm.

"Do you think he didn't know you thought that? Of course he did; he couldn't help but know. You all made it very clear that you thought he was a jerk. But he'd never expected his parents to think it too."

Molly whirled on her, hands going to hips and eyes narrowing to slits.

"And just what is that supposed to mean, Hermione? That we had no right to be concerned when he was about to make a big mistake?"

'Concerned,' Hermione thought wryly. 'For his safety or yours?'

"I think it's better if you talk it over with him yourself. All I can tell you is that he begged me not to tell anyone I'd seen him and I couldn't refuse," she said aloud.

Molly glared.

"You must have brainwashed him somehow. You and that husband of yours."

"You leave Severus out of it."

"What am I supposed to think when you tell me that my own son is better friends with you than with his own family?"

"Maybe that we've been better friends to him than his own family!" Hermione snapped. She took a long, calming breath and continued in a softer tone. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't lose my temper; I know you've had a shock. I'm just sick of hearing Severus be blamed for everything I do that your family doesn't like. If you want to blame anyone, blame me."

There was a short, glaring silence. Hermione passed a hand across her forehead as if to wipe away the frown-lines. She folded and unfolded her lips.

"Anyhow, that's how it is. Percy says he's willing to talk to you if you want. But you have to understand that he feels he was the one who was pushed away, not the other way round, and he'd rather close off that part of his life entirely than go through that again."

"Of course I want to talk to him," Molly said. "Where is he? Can we go now?"

"I'll ring and ask in a little while. We need to give him a bit more chance to talk to his own children about it because Alison was there when it all came out and she had a lot of questions."

"Alison." Molly tasted the name wonderingly. "You said something about sisters? How many are there?"

"Ten, all girls, and most of them look like his wife, Amanda. Only all her friends call her Manda; it's been her nickname since she was little, apparently." Hermione reopened the photo album and thumbed through to a picture of Percy and Manda together. It had been taken at the park on a blustery day. Thick dark waves blew and tangled with windswept red curls. Ginny leaned across to look and Hermione pushed it a little closer.

"They look very happy." Molly knuckled one eye and half-smiled. "Ten girls?"

"Two sets of twins. And no Squibs, so far as we can tell. Alison's the oldest. She's in first year with Cammie. Then Amalie and Adelaide turned eleven last month." She turned the page to a studio portrait of two giggling, freckled redheads. "They look more and more like Ron, the older they get. Anthea – Thea – is ten." The next page showed a skinny, solemn-faced child in long plaits, holding one end of a jump-rope. On the facing page, two plump dark girls bent curly mops over the picture they were colouring together. "Abigail's next, then Aglaia. Aggie. She must be, let me think, oh, about seven and a half. Because Amy-Rose turned six on New Year's Day."

She turned another page. Ginny stared at the dog-eared photo of a flame-haired moppet with a crooked smile and grubby hands. The facing page showed the same child, freshly scrubbed and scowling.

"She looks like Bill, doesn't she, Mum? In that picture Gramps took at Blackpool."

"Goodness, I'd no idea you'd ever seen that picture. What makes you remember it?"

"Fleur went gaga over it that first time she came, don't you remember? 'Oh, leetle Beel, 'ow sweet!'" she mimicked.

"She's a lot more like the twins," Hermione said ruefully. "Always in mischief. Adam's at his wit's end with her sometimes."

Molly's head whipped round to her.

"Adam?"

"Percy," Hermione explained. "I told you, that's what he calls himself now."

Molly snorted.

"Percy was a perfectly fine name!"

Unseen by her mother, Ginny made a face.

"He said he chose it because at last he could be his own man," Hermione said. "You'll just have to get used to it, I suppose."

"Is that the lot then?" Molly turned back to the album. She turned another page. Three cheerful curly-topped faces smiled up at her with very white teeth. "There's more."

"Those are the last. Alfrida started school this year, so she must be five, and Arielle and Aislynn will be four in August."

"Ten more grandchildren." Molly didn't know whether to smile or cry. "Ten grandchildren I've never met. How will I ever remember them all?"

"Keep the album. It's meant for you anyway." Hermione closed it to show Molly what was printed on the cover. _Granny's Brag Book. _"If you can't remember the names, you can pull the photos out to check, because they're all labelled on the back."

Molly's hands closed around the book. Blinking back tears, she opened it again to the picture of Percy and his oldest child.

"'Granny's Brag Book?'" she said bitterly. "How am I supposed to brag about children that grew up without me? That my own son kept away from me all these years? Oh, Percy, Percy, how could you?"

Ginny's arm slid around her mother's shoulder, but her eyes also were fixed on the book.

"I've been seeing that girl every day – sometimes twice - all year," she grumbled, thinking of mealtimes in the Great Hall, "and I never knew she was my niece!" She shot Hermione an accusing glare. "And you sat next to me almost every time and never once told me there was a reason I should give her more than a second glance! How could you?"

Hermione bit her lip and stared at her fingertips. The nails were ragged. They hadn't looked this bad in years. She really needed to stop biting them.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'd have told you if I could."

"All those years stolen from us and we can never get them back," Molly quavered. "I'll never see them take their first steps, I never heard their first words or rocked them to bed when they were babies." She sniffed. "I've never held them in my arms or shared a secret or kissed their ouches better. They could pass me on the street and not know me."

"I know her by sight and I don't know her at all," Ginny muttered. "All this time."

"We can never get it back. It's too late now. All those years. All those memories. I never thought he could be so cruel."

"He didn't mean to be cruel." Hermione spoke through a thick, heavy lump of regret. "He was desperately unhappy."

"That's the cruellest of all," Molly whispered. "That my own child was made unhappy by my presence. That he felt he needed to get away from me. What am I, a dragon?"

There didn't seem to be anything to say. Hermione broke the silence by pulling out her mobile phone.

"Adam, hi. Listen, I'm at your mum's. She wants to see you tonight. Is that all right?"

"We're running a bit late. Haven't had dinner yet –"

Molly glanced at the phone and gasped. There was a bright rectangle of colour, with her son's face on it, his lips moving as he talked. It was like a wizarding photo, only better, because she could hear him. She grabbed it from Hermione's hand.

"Percy? Percy, are you there?"

"There is no Percy. I'm Adam." He sounded tired and cross.

"Don't give me that, Percy Ignatius Weasley," Molly said tartly, tears forgotten. "For 41 years, you've been Percy to me and there hasn't been a day in all that time that I didn't think of you."

Percy's face crumpled.

"Oh, Mum, I – I can't –"

The picture showed rapid movement then a square-chinned female face, framed by thick, dark waves, came into view and flashed a friendly smile.

"Hello? This is Manda. Are you my mother-in-law?"

"Oh, can you see me?" Molly had never shared her husband's fascination with Muggle technology. Floo-talking had been good enough for her mother and grandmother and it was good enough for her, she'd always told her children whenever they waxed lyrical over the joys of fellytones. "Yes, I suppose so. If you're Percy's wife, then I suppose I must be. And this is Ginny beside me, Percy's sister. We'd like to come over and see him, if that's all right." _Or even if it isn't_.

The face looked away, then looked back, still smiling.

"You can come, but we'll have to take a rain-check on Ginny, sorry," it said briskly. "Come for dinner. Hermione knows where we live."

"Rain-check? What does that mean?" Molly muttered to Hermione.

"She means later," Hermione explained.

"That's right. Ginny, I'd love to meet you, but not today, OK? Adam's feeling a bit overwhelmed, he can't cope with two of you tonight."

'Tomorrow?" Ginny suggested.

"I'll have to get back to you on that. See how it goes with your mum first, OK? Soon."

Ginny found herself nodding obediently back. She didn't wonder at herself till afterwards.

"He's all right, isn't he?" Molly fretted.

"Don't worry, just come over as quick as you can. He'll be right as rain once he's got it over with. Poor dear does tend to work himself into a state, but you'd know that, right? You know how he is."

Molly turned her face away and shook her head. Had she ever known who he was? And if not then, when he'd been living with her, how could she possibly know what he was now?

Five minutes later, Alison flung the door wide to their knock, five or six younger sisters clustered around her.

"Aunt Hermione, hi. And Mrs Weasley – I mean – um, should I call you gran?"

For answer, Molly hugged her and was almost immediately engulfed by granddaughters shouting questions.

"Are you really our gran?"

"Dad says you have a ghoul in the attic!"

And he misses your cauldron cakes the most."

"Don't be silly." Alison shot Aggie a very superior glare, before turning back to her grandmother. "Of course, it's you he misses the most."

Molly wiped her eyes and hugged her again.

In the midst of the chaos, Manda appeared at the end of the hall, unruffled and efficient. She came swiftly forward and shook Molly's hand. Molly looked at their joined hands, then up at Manda's smiling face, and forced an answering smile on lips that felt suddenly tight. Who was this confident Muggle woman, so different from most of her other deferential daughters-in-law? Only Fleur had been as unconcerned with winning her approval, but this no-nonsense, straight-browed person was nothing like Fleur.

"Come in, do," Manda said, waving her through. "Adam's just in the living-room. He'd have come to the door, but he's got the little twins in his lap and they refused to budge. Hermione, you're welcome to join us, but don't feel you have to. I can manage from here, if you'd rather not."

"Much rather, thanks, Manda," Hermione replied, ruthlessly rubbing the ache out of her forehead. That was enough angst and drama for one day. No doubt she'd hear all about it, tomorrow or the day after, from both sides without even asking. "I see you told them already."

Her friend let out a long, exasperated breath.

"As soon as we got back from the hospital," she said grimly, her eyes resting on Amy-Rose's arm bound in fluorescent green tape over plaster until it rounded the corner with the rest of her grandmother's noisy retinue.

Hermione followed her gaze and ruefully shook her head.

"Oh dear," she sympathised.

"That's why we're running late tonight," Manda said. "Amy-Rose and explanations. Have you fed yours yet or is that what you're rushing home for?"

"I sent them to Hogwarts after Severus. That means I get to go home and rest over a cup of tea and a Chelsea bun." Not a very healthy dinner, but about the only thing that could tempt her appetite at the moment. "I hope they won't hurry home."

Their eyes met.

"We'll talk tomorrow then. I'd better go rescue Adam. She looks fearsome." Her voice lowered, but her eyes held a twinkle.

"Only to her nearest and dearest, usually."

Manda rolled her dark eyes.

"Wonderful."

In the event, it was Cammie who shared the first news of the meeting, after a half-hour pre-breakfast call, the next morning, that only ended when her father ordered her off the phone.

"I'll ring you later," she said, rolling her eyes.

"You will not."

"Da-ad!"

"Sit down and eat that brightly-coloured mess you call cereal." In the communal life of a boarding school Deputy Head, breakfast was the one meal he hadn't been required to preside over in the Great Hall. Consequently, it had become enshrined as family time. No interruptions, no distractions. But that didn't mean they couldn't discuss non-family matters.

"So tell us! What happened last night?" Callie leaned forward over her three slices of toast, one buttered, one marmaladed and one plain. She'd heard enough of Cammie's side of the conversation to know that something had, apart from the explanation her dad had promised Alison.

"Mum took Gran Weasley there and she stayed for dinner. Mrs Weasley, I mean. Aunt Manda's bolognaise, yum! Why don't you ever make it, Mum?"

"Your dad doesn't eat cinnamon."

"But you can hardly taste it!" Cammie grumbled, without much hope. Dad could, of course; one of the disadvantages to having a dad who was both a Potioneer and a finicky eater.

"Obviously, you can, or you wouldn't notice that I leave it out," her mum said.

"Never mind that," Callie said impatiently. She layered her toasts and cut them into four slices. "Get to the juicy bits. Did they have a fight?"

"Only a little one before dinner. Mrs Weasley kept calling Uncle Adam 'Percy' and he got scowlier and scowlier –"

"That's not a word," her mum said automatically.

"Yeah, I know, but –"

"Listen to your mother."

"Okay, okay, Dad." She lowered her voice to a confidential whisper to forestall any further interruptions. Her parents continued eating as calmly as if they weren't secretly listening. "Anyhow, the little twins wouldn't get off him 'cos they were a bit sleepy, so he couldn't walk out, and the big twins couldn't take them 'cos they were setting the table, and Alison and Thea were in the kitchen –"

"Then how did she know what he looked like?" whispered Callie, watching her dad out the side of her eye. He took a tiny dab of butter and scraped it across his toast with fierce concentration.

"They told her after, of course. Anyhow, then all of a sudden their dad just started yelling that he hated Percy too, just as much as they did, and that's why he killed him off, and then the little twins started wailing and –"

"That's what you call a little fight?" demanded Hermione, forgetting to pretend. Severus just smirked.

Cammie raised her eyebrows at her mum and said in a patronising tone, "Well, yeah, 'cos then Aunt Manda came in and stopped it, of course."

"Of course," echoed Callie.

"She invited Mrs Weasley into the kitchen to taste-test if the food was ready and she took Uncle Adam off upstairs to put the little twins to bed."

Hermione silently admired Manda's tact and presence of mind. There was nothing more likely to pacify her newly-discovered mother-in-law than to cede her control of the kitchen and family hearth.

"And by the time he came down again, he was even smiling!" Cammie said triumphantly. Then her lips twitched. "At least, he was until Amy-Rose asked who he killed and why."

Her parents exchanged glances and silently shook their heads. It was Callie's turn to smirk.

"Did he tell her?" She cocked her head to the left. "Or did he just say, 'Ask your mother'?"

That earned her a long look from her father.

"Is this conversation intended for our ears, Calendula?" he asked, with menacing politeness.

His older daughter winced. She hated her full name, though at least it wasn't Camomile, like her sister. And no, she didn't think it was romantic for them to be named after two of the chief ingredients of the potion that had brought her parents back together when they were courting, ew! She'd told her mum that many times, but Mum just laughed and told her to be glad her name wasn't Aconite.

"If so, I shall have to take notice of impertinence," he continued. "I've a vat of horned toads needing disembowelling. They should have stopped wriggling by now."

"Da-ad! You can't give us a school punishment for something we do at home! You promised! Anyway, no, it wasn't. It was private."

He returned to his toast.

"Then I suggest you conduct it with a little more discretion."

Three pairs of brown eyes stared at him reproachfully, but he didn't seem to notice. The girls gobbled their breakfasts hastily.

"May I be excused?"

"Me too?"

Hermione waved them away. After the door closed behind them, she turned to Severus, pushing her chair closer, then stopping to cast a Muffliato. The girls were probably too busy chattering to eavesdrop, but with Callie it was always better to be safe than sorry.

"You didn't wake me last night," she grumbled.

He gave her that half-eyebrow-raise that meant affectionate amusement.

"Couldn't. Was it completely unbearable?"

She glared at him.

"I had to tell Molly myself, while Ginny said everything she could think of to make it worse. What do you think?" she snapped.

"You're still better off than I am. Minerva has decreed that I have to attend your clever little idea of a family meeting with all the Weasley students in two days time." He yawned. "I have to mediate in three sibling meetings tonight, with my wand at the ready just in case." He rubbed just above his eyebrows. His tolerance for Weasleys had already been exhausted yesterday. "And I was up half the night with Adam, so I know you got away sooner than I will and I've already heard about how well his meeting with Molly went."

She gave him a doubtful, measuring glance.

"Completely unbearable?"

He tucked in his chin and gave her a knowing upward glance.

"What do you think?"

"I think it must have got worse after that first clash or you wouldn't have stopped the girls talking about it at table."

He shrugged.

"They made it through dinner safely. The cataclysms came later."

Hermione grimaced.

"Do I want to know?"

Severus smirked teasingly.

"Do you?"

She tangled her hand in his hair and gave a short admonitory tug.

"Disagreeable man."

She'd called him that the day he proposed, seventeen years ago. He reached up to take her hand in his and let his forehead rest on hers.

"Aggravating, irritating, little wretch," he retorted appropriately. "But I'm inclined to think you were wrong about our children." She'd predicted their children would be the horridest in the history of the universe. No such thing. "At least they're not a Weasley brood."

**A/N Cinnamon in the bolognaise sauce? Absolutely. Plus the herbs and spices you already knew about, pepper, garlic, basil, bay and oregano. Veal mince is nicer than beef to my taste, and a tsp of vinegar doesn't hurt either.**

**Canon doesn't specify what goes into the Wolfsbane Potion, but both Calendula and Camomile have qualities that would assist with healing, calming, sedating or reducing muscle spasms, fever, inflammation and other ills, so I decided they were likely candidates for reducing the after-effects of the transformation. And they're both flowering plants too, which makes them suitable for female names ;-))**


	6. Dragging a Family

DRAGGING A FAMILY

**Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

**Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste and C****ecelle. **

**This fic is not HBP-compliant but does take note of some HBP information. As the canon-reading here is quite controversial, I've referenced Percy's arguments with their canon sources in a long A/N at the end of the chapter.**

Severus leaned into his wife's hair and closed his eyes, ignoring the uncleared breakfast, as he considered how much to tell her. It had been a long night. The rocky after-dinner confrontation with Molly had left Adam in that chatty post-disaster mood that unblocks years of dammed-up memories. The first cataclysm had come when she scolded him for having hidden his children from their large and loving extended family, the second when she brought up his fight with his father.

"I was never so shocked in all my life! After everything your father did for you!"

"I'm sorry about the fight we had. I should never have said those things to him." Adam said, staring dully at the floor. His wife's hand slipped into his and squeezed. She'd tasked the older children with putting the younger ones to bed, just for this one night.

"He was terribly upset. How could you? The dearest, sweetest man, the kindest gentlest father – You didn't know how lucky you were to have him!" Molly raged.

"Yes, he was kind," Adam agreed. He pulled Manda's square, capable hand further into his lap and placed his other hand around it. His own looked very white and freckly against her milk-coffee skin.

"The nights he stayed up with you when you were ill! The games he thought up to amuse you when you were little!"

"I know, Mum. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said –" _what I really thought._ "I shouldn't have said it, any of it. It was rude and disrespectful."

"It was rubbish! 'Struggling against his reputation! Not working hard enough! Neglecting the family!' Lies, all lies. He was heading his department and the next year he was promoted to a new office with ten men under him! Scrimgeour wouldn't have done that if he didn't respect your father!"

Adam bowed his head and swallowed down his answer.

_Of course, that promotion had nothing to do with the Minister wanting to keep an eye on Dumbledore and the Order, had it? That promotion must have been on merit, mustn't it? It was only mine that had to have been from ulterior motives. I was the only person who ever faced an inquiry at work; I was the only person who couldn't be good enough to deserve recognition. _

"I won't – I can't talk about Dad to you. Not when he's not here to answer."

Manda's thumb caressed Adam's palm as Molly swelled with anger, hands on hips, chin out-thrust.

"Just what is that supposed to mean? He loved you. He loved all of you. What did he ever do that needed answering to you?"

Her son breathed in and out again, long and deep.

"Nothing, Mum."

_I wanted to be him; I tried so hard, when I was growing up, to make him proud, to make him smile like he did at the twins' tricks, but he never understood me and I suppose I never understood him and now we never will._

"He was a better father than you'll ever be!"

Manda's eyes flashed and she leaned forward, chin outthrust, but the sudden pressure of Percy's hand on hers forestalled what would have been a tirade to rival her mother-in-law's. She glanced at him and nodded, then took a deep, calming breath and chose her words carefully.

"That is impossible," she said firmly, patting his arm with her free hand. "Adam's an excellent father. I promise that he does you both credit. He's loving and generous and caring. He reads to the little ones and helps the older ones with their homework and he's always available when they want to talk."

"I'm glad to hear it, but –"

"One thing I've learned, as a mother of a large family, is that sometimes people disagree. I've found it better to cling to our commonality than fight over our differences. We can all agree that Adam's father was a kind and caring man and that your home was filled with love. Shouldn't that be enough?"

The third cataclysm, smaller but no less bitter, came with Molly's reply.

"He still hasn't learned to admit when he's wrong. If only he'd trusted Albus and dear Harry, he wouldn't have – "

Adam's hands tightened till his knuckles gleamed white, but Manda's answering squeeze reminded him that he was still holding her hand. He released it hastily and stroked the pain away.

"I refuse to discuss Dumbledore and Harry Potter with you. There's no point," he said through gritted teeth. "I didn't trust them then and I don't trust them now and you do and that's all there is to say about it."

"They beat Voldemort," Molly pointed out triumphantly.

"They were lucky. And in the process they did their best to topple the Ministry."

Molly snorted and tossed her head.

"The Ministry deserved to be toppled!"

Adam leaned forward, eyes blazing.

"Then Wizarding Britain deserved to be toppled. The Ministry is the instrument of the people. What did Dumbledore plan to put in its place, a benevolent dictatorship with Harry Potter at the head?"

"That's not –"

"Dumbledore was always a bit mad, but when Harry came to Hogwarts, all Dumbledore's sense of proportion and fair judgement went out the window," Adam continued.

His mother stared at him, her eyes filling with realisation.

"You never liked Harry. I suppose you were jealous of his fame and popularity."

He sloughed off the implication with a shake of his head.

"He wasn't popular, not really. If I'd ever wanted his fame, watching people turn on him in my sixth year would have cured me. What I didn't like was his throwing himself and Ron into danger all the time. And the way Dumbledore fawned on him as if he could do no wrong."

"He didn't drag Ron; your brother was just as eager as Harry."

"But Ron always came off the worst, didn't he? Ron was knocked out in first year, Ron had his wand broken in second year and his leg broken in third year, Ron was put underwater in fourth year, attacked by a brain in fifth year – in the Department of Mysteries, where he never should have been! He could have died, and Ginny too! And he was poisoned in sixth year!"

He put his head in his hands suddenly, oblivious alike to his mother's accusing glare and his wife's sympathy.

"I tried to stop it. I told Ron – I _told_ him to be careful of Harry, but he wouldn't listen. I wanted Harry sent away from school so he couldn't drag them into any more trouble. I thought when he was on trial for that Patronus – And when he got caught training an army of students for Dumbledore – I thought he'd get sent home and Ron and Ginny would be safe and I was glad!"

That was news to his mother. Only her daughter-in-law's tact and calm – and the reminder that there were ten gorgeous grandchildren for Molly to get to know – kept her from storming out of their home as he had done from hers twenty years earlier. It was a near-run thing though and they were all exhausted by the time she left.

Severus, arriving soon after to discuss the arrangements he'd made on Adam's behalf, had found his friend slumped in his chair, staring at the pattern of the upholstery as if it could tell him the meaning of life.

"Did Manda let you in? I hope she went to bed after. She has to cope with Mum coming tomorrow to spend time with the kids," Adam muttered wearily. "I'll be at work, thank goodness."

"I take it the meeting didn't go well?"

His friend barked a short laugh.

"You know Mum. She wanted to know everything about everything I didn't want to tell her. Only she didn't want to know it, not really. Not unless it was what she wanted to hear."

"That's hardly surprising."

"It's been locked away for so long, I almost thought I'd forgotten."

Severus closed his eyes briefly in fellow-feeling. The things in life that one most wanted to forget were precisely those one never could.

"Almost," he said.

Adam nodded. A silence fell. Severus stretched his long legs in front of him and waited.

"I'll never see Dad again," Adam said, raising his head and blinking. "I'll never have a chance to make things right between us, to even know if things could ever be right between us."

"You wish they could."

Adam sighed and rubbed his eyes fiercely.

"When Hermione told me he was dead, it didn't seem real somehow. Not completely. I wasn't expecting to see any of my family again so – I don't know, he didn't seem much further out of reach than he already was. I grieved but it didn't quite take hold, I didn't believe it. But now… Now that I'm seeing them all again and he isn't there –"

"You miss him."

Adam swallowed hard and covered his eyes with one hand as the other clenched in his lap. There was another silence.

"He always had time for us when we were kids. It took so little to make him happy."

The older man nodded.

"Yes, he always seemed content with what he had."

"I loved him for that, but as I grew older, it bothered me. Watching Mum wear herself out being the parent for both of them. In some ways, he was like a child that never grew up."

"Your mother liked him that way. I've heard her say that all men are children," Severus said.

"I'm not. I never was. I think I was born a hundred years old." Adam paused and sighed. "I was barely five when Voldemort was defeated the first time. All my earliest memories are of Mum crying over her brothers. Maybe I'm not remembering it right, but it seemed like she was doing it all the time. And I knew I had to be good for her and help look after my little brothers – and even Ginny sometimes – when Mum. – when she – when she couldn't."

"Your older brothers were unable?"

"They were already at the local school during the day and they didn't hurry home. I don't think they really knew. She could put on a brave face most of the time, especially when Dad was home, but when she was alone with us little ones… Something would set her off and she'd just cry and cry." He ran his hand through his short, red curls and sighed again.

"But not when he was home?" Severus asked.

"No. Maybe he cheered her up; I was never sure whether she was really happy when he was there or just pretending."

One long finger tracing his thin mouth, Severus watched his friend rub his brow.

"You resented it," he said.

Adam grimaced.

"I did, I think. More because he didn't know than because he could make her smile when I couldn't. At least, that's what I told myself, but now I'm not so sure. I resented him terribly sometimes. I felt burdened with keeping her smiling, keeping the little ones out of her hair when things got tough. Well, trying to, because Fred and George were always too much for me."

"They'd have been too much for anyone," Severus assured him.

"Yes, I suppose, but I didn't understand that then. I just thought I should be trying harder. And it didn't help that I was always the odd one out, the spare. Mum had Dad, of course. Bill and Charlie were always together and I was too young for their games, they were always telling me to push off and go play with the littlies. The twins never needed anyone but each other and then Ron and Ginny were just seventeen months apart."

"They were too young to be your companions."

"I was more like a parent than a playmate." Adam was staring at a picture only he could see, far away but unfaded and clear. The years dropped away. "I wiped their noses and spooned their cereal and found their lost toys. And then they grew up and they didn't need me to do that any more."

"But you still needed to do it."

"I wanted – No, you're right, I needed that. It was all they'd ever wanted from me and when they didn't want it any more, I had nothing that they wanted. I was nothing."

There had been much more in the same vein, long, painful hours of it. Severus breathed in the clean, fresh scent of his wife's hair in the bright morning and skated lightly over most of the details. Hermione could only be glad she'd missed it all.

"Is he still going to go ahead with seeing the others if it went so badly with his mum?" she asked, smothering a jaw-cracking yawn. She felt weary, so weary.

Severus yawned too, but turned it into a cough.

"Tonight. He just wants to get it over with."

When Bill and Charlie arrived that night, Hermione showed them into her husband's study, and then went back to the kitchen to sprinkle cheese on the lasagna. Adam arrived three minutes later. By then, dinner was in the oven and Hermione was settled at her desk, reading, so Callie let him in, then made herself scarce, obedient to her father's glare. He warded the room anyway.

The three brothers stared at each other in silence until Severus spoke.

"I hadn't thought you'd need introductions, but if you've all forgotten each other's names –" He paused expectantly.

"Perce," Bill said.

Adam looked back at him.

"Bill. Charlie."

"We missed you, you silly git," Charlie said suddenly. "Don't disappear again."

His younger brother rubbed the back of his neck and gave a painful smile.

"I'm not planning to. It's not so easy when you're dragging a family too."

"Why did you do it?" Bill demanded. "Didn't you know we'd care?"

Adam didn't flinch.

"Did you care?" he asked. The only sign of his tension was the clenching of his hands and the tight straight set of his shoulders.

"Of course we did," Bill said roughly.

Adam blinked.

"Oh," he said and lifted his chin slightly. "That explains why you never came looking for me or asked me my side of the quarrel. I see."

"Prat," Charlie said without heat. "We didn't blame you for leaving. Not even for having a fight with Mum and Dad about it. How could we? It's what we did ourselves."

Bill nodded. Severus studied them for a moment, then picked up the top letter on his desk and began to read. It didn't look as if he was needed.

"Only we made a clean break straight from school. Got jobs overseas and left the country." Bill sighed. "Maybe you should have done that too, but you were always such a homebody, you didn't want to leave."

Adam's mouth was open and his breathing was heavy. He blinked a few more times. His mouth closed and he swallowed hard.

"I didn't believe it when Ginny wrote me that you'd left," Charlie reminisced. "And I certainly never thought you'd stay away longer than it took to make your point. It never occurred to me you wouldn't be back some time soon, fretting about the extra work you'd brought home and grumbling about the noise."

Adam drew in his breath as if it hurt.

"If you'd only said. I thought you hated me too."

"Nobody hated you, Perce. You were just overreacting. You always did have a tendency that way," Charlie said. Bill nodded agreement. Severus turned the page.

"Don't call me Perce; I'm Adam now."

"You could change your name ten times, you'd still always be Perce to us," Charlie said.

His younger brother scowled and turned his head away. _I hate Percy sodding Weasley. I don't want to be him ever again._

"They said Fudge only wanted me so I could spy on them! As if I would!" he said.

'They didn't think you'd spy on them intentionally," Bill explained patiently. "Just that the Ministry might trick you into saying things you oughtn't. I know you fancied yourself very grown up then, but you were only a year out of school and not experienced enough to know how tricky people can be."

Adam shook his head.

"Dad yelled at me. You know he never yelled at anyone, not even the twins when they took his car, not even Ron, when he copied them and almost got Dad fired."

"I wouldn't say never," Bill mused. "There was that time they gave Ronnie an Acid Pop and burnt a hole in his tongue."

"Mm-hm. And that time they tried to get him to make an Unbreakable Vow," Charlie chimed in.

"Right. Or that time –"

All right, all right," Adam huffed. "Almost never. You know what I meant. They thought the Ministry only wanted me as a spy. The only way I could prove them wrong was to go away and not see them. Nobody could accuse me of spying on them if I never saw them."

"You idiot, Perce," said Bill affectionately. "Fancy thinking it was worth losing your family just to prove they could trust you. Kind of defeats the purpose, don't you think?"

"I didn't mean to lose them!" Adam protested, adding sulkily, "Anyway, I didn't want to be around family that didn't trust me not to spy on them."

Charlie just laughed at him. Severus picked up his quill and began drafting his reply.

Next to have a turn were Fred and George. They bounced into the room in matching dragon-hide jackets and boots and began talking at once, turn and turn about. Severus watched them under shadowed eyelids, his hand loose on his wand. One never knew with those two.

"Brilliant prank, Perce, but you haven't quite got –"

"– The hang of it. You should have popped up and yelled 'Surprise!' after –"

"– Twenty minutes, not twenty years."

Adam sat, head in hand. And didn't look up.

"Say what you want to say and go away," he muttered.

"It was just joking, Perce. Sure we liked –"

"– To razz you, but you didn't think we meant anything by it."

Adam's lips tightened and his free hand clenched.

"A joke is just the truth in disguise. Of course you meant it," he said flatly.

Fred shook his head earnestly.

"We just wanted you to lighten up."

"We didn't mean to drive you away," George added.

"Maybe you didn't realise you meant it," Adam shot back.

The twins looked at each other, then back at his recalcitrant bent head.

"We _didn't_ mean it. So you're saying –"

"– This is all about us; it's all our fault you left."

"You taught Ron and Ginny to hate me too," their brother accused them. Severus leaned back in his chair, but his hand never left his wand. Just in case.

"We never! Doesn't it enter your fat brain that maybe they were –"

" – Rude because of you, because you were just too goody-goody, too bossy, too much of a suck-up."

Adam lifted his head to glare at them.

"And you say you don't hate me." He turned away. "I never meant any of you anything but good and you pushed me away. And then Mum and Dad turned against me too. What was there to stay for?"

"Perce, Perce, you silly boneheaded canary-brain," said George.

"Of course we don't hate you. We love you like a brother," Fred continued. "It's just that we don't always like you very much."

"And you ought to understand that, because it's how you feel about us. At least –"

" – You don't really _hate_ us, do you?" Fred's voice was so anxious that Percy had to look at him, and then he couldn't look away. He meant it. They both meant it. That was unexpected. Severus watched the three brothers staring into each other's eyes and reflected on the twins' unpredictability. This was turning out to be much easier than he'd anticipated. It couldn't possibly last.

Adam smiled wryly.

"I just wanted all of you to be happy, and it was clear you'd do that easier without me."

"You mean you thought you'd be happier –"

"– Without us."

Adam closed his eyes, but the pain was clear on his face.

"Not happier. Just – not so raw all the time."

So far, so good, but the youngest Weasleys were also the most hot-headed. Ron came in, scowling, and flung himself into a chair. Ginny followed, her brow furrowed and a frown in her eyes.

"It's all about Harry, isn't it?" Ron accused, without even a greeting. "You were jealous 'cos you thought we liked him better."

Adam sat deeper in his chair and eyed his brother in much the way one eyes a rattlesnake. Severus sighed and shifted his hand on his wand. If it came to hexes, he'd be ready.

"I don't want to argue about this," Adam said wearily.

"That's because you have no argument," Ron shot back.

Adam looked from his brother's accusing face to his sister's and took a deep breath. He really didn't want to discuss it. 'After tonight, I may never see them again,' he reminded himself. His lips tightened. _One last throw of the dice. One last attempt to break through to them._

"You did like him better," he answered, "but that's beside the point."

"No, that is the point! That's when it all began, isn't it? You were jealous." Ron's voice was rising.

Ginny was uncharacteristically silent. Adam glanced at her, biting his lip, and tried to explain.

"He changed you. You wouldn't listen to me, you just kept following him into one scrape after another and you wouldn't listen. He almost got you killed, every year of school, and instead of stopping him, Dumbledore encouraged him."

Ron jumped up and began pacing. Severus hid a sigh of relief. Perhaps the irritating brat would expend his energy on movement instead of magical mayhem.

"He saved Ginny in my second year and he saved Dad in my fifth and he put his life on the line to save me lots of times," Ron shot back.

"You wouldn't even have been in danger, if not for him," Adam said quietly.

A stabbing finger almost put out an eye as Ron swooped. Severus raised his wand and cut across Ron's furious rejoinder.

"Sit down, Mr Weasley, or I shall be forced to Petrify you." He kept one eye on Ginny, in case she decided to stop him. Her Bat-Bogey Hexes were legend, even now.

Ron eyed his erstwhile teacher and sat down sulkily.

"Now you may repeat yourself, if you haven't thought better of it," his host invited calmly.

"I said, 'Bollocks!' Voldemort would still have risen, if Harry wasn't there. In fact, Voldemort would never have gone away in the first place and we might not even have lived to go to school."

Severus rolled his eyes. That wasn't Potter. That was his mother.

"That diary wasn't about him at all; it was about the Malfoys hating Dad," Ginny suddenly contributed. Her frown was deeper, but her hands were still safely clasped in her lap.

"It was also about being Dumbledore's biggest supporters and Harry Potter's closest friends," Adam argued.

"Better than being Fudge's biggest supporter and Umbridge's closest friend!" By the way Ron sat preening himself, it was clear he thought he'd clinched the argument.

Ginny huffed out an angry sigh. This wasn't about point-scoring or, at any rate, it shouldn't be.

"Shut it, Ron," she said shortly and challenged her other brother with one flaming glance. "Percy!" she commanded. "And if you dare tell me to call you Adam, I _will_ hex you! Are you trying to say that we should care more about what's dangerous than what's right? Because I'll never agree to that."

"No, of course not," Adam said. "You have to do what's right."

"Then just what the flaming heck are you on about? We did what we thought was right and we were right! And if Harry was in danger, it was for our sake and we were proud to follow him into and out of it! And we still are!"

Adam stared at her. His mouth opened and shut several times, as he thought of things to say and thought better of them. At last, he sighed.

"I just wanted you to be safe, Gin. I wanted all of you to be safe. I needed you to be safe."

"No, Perce, you needed us to be strong. Because no one can guarantee safety when there's a nutter like Moldy-Voldy on the loose, and the only way to stop him is to stand firm against him. And I don't know what you thought you were doing, but it wasn't that!"

Adam rubbed his forehead hard enough to hurt and spoke without looking at her.

"Yes, it was. Upholding the Ministry is upholding the law. No one should be above the law. Not even Dumbledore or Harry Potter."

Thin lips quirked in agreement. _Especially not Potter. _No one was looking at Severus to notice.

"It tears at the very fabric of society," Adam went on fiercely.

"What if the Ministry and the laws are corrupt?" Ginny said. Ron nodded self-righteously beside her.

"Then you fix them, you don't break them more. No one was in a better position than Dumbledore to fix them. He _was_ the law – Head of the Wizengamot for years – and he could have been the Ministry too, instead of Fudge, and tried to fix things from the inside."

Black brows rose, but Severus was silent. The question of whether the leader was the embodiment of the law or only its servant was not one these hotheaded siblings were equipped to argue.

"Some things are too broken to fix," Ginny said.

"Especially when you don't even try!" Adam shot back. "He just preferred working outside the law, where he wouldn't be accountable to anyone for his decisions."

Ginny's eyes flashed fire.

"Maybe he just knew that guiding children was a better way of fixing the law than ruling adults."

"I hardly think so. How much guiding did Dumbledore ever do? 'Nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak?'" he mimicked savagely. "He ran that school like a private fiefdom and put you and your friends on the frontline to fight for him."

"What would you know about it?" Ron chimed in. "He was wise and good and he did it all for our own benefit."

"He made you think it was for your own benefit. Maybe he thought so too, but that doesn't make it true. Don't you see?" he appealed desperately, his hands dropping away from his face to clench by his sides. "It's just as easy for one person to be corrupt or misguided as for an organisation; easier, in fact, because he doesn't have the checks and balances that come with accountability."

'On the other hand,' thought Severus, 'he doesn't have the dead weight of everyone else's folly pulling him down with them.' He sighed. _Would these children never grow up?_

"But he was right about Voldemort having returned and Fudge was wrong! He was just too stupid and too scared to face the facts," Ron said.

"What facts? There was no hard evidence, just an escaped lunatic Death Eater who killed my boss and spoilt the World Cup and the Triwizards."

"There was more than one Death Eater at the World Cup," Ginny offered.

Adam shook his head.

"No, there was more than one Muggle-baiter. Not every Muggle-baiter is a Death Eater, even if they dress up to look like it. And even if you're right, don't forget there was another escaped Death Eater on the loose."

"There was hard evidence, you know," Ron said. "Barty Crouch confessed –"

"Veritaserum testimony!" Adam snorted. "You know that's not reliable."

'Severus was there and he's a Potions-master. He'd know how reliable it was," Ginny suggested.

Three pairs of eyes turned to interrogate their host. His lips pursed and his eyes narrowed in remembrance as he inclined his head.

"It was very strong Veritaserum and Barty had no chance to subvert it as he was unconscious when I administered it. It would have been corroborated under interrogation by the Wizengamot, if Fudge had not, unfortunately, prevented that by bringing a Dementor with him."

"Yes, why did he do that, if he was above-board?" Ron demanded.

Adam rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"Because the previous year, a dangerous Death Eater escaped from Hogwarts in very peculiar circumstances and Dumbledore spun a ridiculous story about dead people coming to life as Animagi –"

Ron leaned forward, his face redder than his freckles.

"That wasn't Dumbledore, that was us. Are you calling me a liar?"

"You were Confunded –"

Ron snorted.

"No, I wasn't. Ask Snape, if you don't believe me."

Severus nodded gravely.

"I can confirm that the truth was stranger than fiction, in this case. I later had the misfortune of having Pettigrew billeted on me for several months."

Adam's face screwed into a grimace of disgust.

"You mean it was true? My rat – Scabbers was Pettigrew?"

"I'm afraid so." Thin lips twisted. "He managed to stay out of the way of Aurors till well after you turned Muggle, but his body was found eventually."

"There! You see!" Ron's finger stabbed the air but Adam was shaking his head.

"There was no way the Ministry could know that at the time. Who could believe Harry and Dumbledore after a story like that?"

"Anyone with sense! Anyone could tell they weren't liars!" said Ron.

Adam was unfazed.

"Dumbledore had already deceived the Ministry several times, and every time it was to protect Harry Potter. That's why we didn't trust him."

"You were there that night Fudge and Dumbledore had that fight, weren't you?" Ginny demanded of her host. "You must have an opinion."

Severus traced his finger several times around his thin mouth, his other hand gently rolling his wand.

"Fudge was wrong, but –"

"There!" Ron said again.

"But, in hindsight, I can admit that his reaction was understandable. A year earlier, the headmaster had destroyed my credit and his own when he chose to protect Lupin at my expense –"

"It wasn't Dumbledore, it was that tantrum you threw!" Ron gibed. Harry had told him all about it after he'd woken up. "Fudge thought you were a nutter."

Thin lips grew thinner as Severus continued, "And would any responsible headmaster employ a 'nutter', as you put it?" He saw with satisfaction the dropping of Ron's jaw. Obviously, that was a question the dunderhead had never contemplated. "Fudge was wavering at first and I believe that careful handling might have persuaded him of the truth. Instead, Dumbledore made a stand on Potter's credibility – once again, subordinating common sense to partiality – and forced the split."

Ron scowled, unconvinced, but Ginny's hands twisted. She'd known Severus long enough to believe he was telling the truth as he saw it.

"But you can't defend what Fudge did after that!" she said. "He had Dumbledore thrown out of the Wizengamot and started a witch-hunt in the ministry for any of his friends."

"A very sensible precaution, after Dumbledore declared a parting of the ways and said he was going to act as he saw fit," retorted Adam. "He'd headed a private militia in the previous war and he practically told Fudge he was going to reactivate them and set them above the law."

"A private militia?" Ginny shrilled. "The Order, that your own parents and brothers were part of, a private militia? Are you insane?"

"He must be," Ron weighed in.

"A private militia," Adam repeated stubbornly. "Set above the law. I never approved of that and I never will."

Eyes popping and jaw loose, Ron stared at him and finally said, "You're as stubborn and stupid as Fudge!"

Adam blinked and his mouth and fists hardened. He paused.

"Thank you. It's nice to know that your opinion of me hasn't changed."

Severus cast up his eyes. As if on cue, Ginny turned to look at him.

"What do you think, Severus? You were further in than any of us. Who's right?"

Magnificently ignoring Ron's snort and muttered "Like he'd know!" Severus inclined his head and gave her the sort of knowing upward glance Dumbledore used to give him. _Both of you. Neither of you. Foolish children._

"Does it matter? You can argue till the Polyjuice boils about politics and ethics and all you'll be doing is prolonging the split in your family. You don't have to agree on who was right then. You don't even have to agree on who's right now. Just accept that you all did what you thought was right and move on." _I sound like an advice columnist from Witch Weekly. Maybe I should Obliviate them._

'Move on? Yeah, that's what Percy did, all right. He left, didn't he? And if that isn't proof that he knew he was wrong, I don't know what is," sneered Ron.

Adam turned away, blinking against the burning in his eyes. He could feel their stares on his back, but he waited a moment till he knew he could keep his voice steady.

"I left because I didn't want to argue with you any more. And I still don't."

**A/N ****1) Arthur faced an inquiry at work after Ron and Harry flew his enchanted car to Hogwarts. (CoS, ch 6, Gilderoy Lockhart)**

**2) Percy was the only Weasley present at the trial (OotP, ch 7, The Ministry of Magic) and in Dumbledore's office when the DA was discovered (OotP, ch 27, The Centaur and the Sneak) and those present wouldn't have told Molly about Percy's attitude because the mere mention of his name made her cry.**

**3) The Harry Potter Lexicon timeline gives the following birthdays for the Weasley kids:  
Bill, Nov 29, 1970; Charlie, Dec 12, 1972; Percy, Aug 22, 1976; twins, Apr 1, 1978; Ron, March 1, 1980; Ginny, Aug 11, 1981. Canon is not specific on when Molly's brothers, Gideon and Fabian Prewett, were killed but, judging by Moody's photo of the Order (OotP, ch 9, The Woes of Mrs Weasley), the Potters were alive and out of school (since the Order doesn't take students.) Canon doesn't specify whether Molly home-schooled her children or sent them to a local school, but the presence of other Wizarding families in Ottery St. Catchpole suggests that the latter is a possibility. The family dynamics are my extrapolation.**

**4) Canon isn't clear about who started the yelling in Percy's fight with his father or even whether Arthur yelled at all. (OotP, ch 4, Number twelve, Grimmauld Place) What little information we have comes from Percy's younger siblings, who always side against him.**

**5) Percy's comment about Dumbledore having had the power to fix the Ministry stems from repeated canon references to Fudge having got the top job by default because Dumbledore refused it, for example (PS/SS, ch 5, Diagon Alley), "They wanted Dumbledore fer Minister, o' course, but he'd never leave Hogwarts so old Cornelius Fudge got the job."**

**6) JK's site says that Veritaserum can be subverted by a powerful wizard. Occlumency protects against it or it can be transfigured before swallowing or the throat can be magically closed to prevent swallowing. Thus Barty's evidence was not legally conclusive.**

**7) We know that Voldemort returned at the end of GoF, but the Ministry did not, (GoF, ch 36, The Parting of the Ways): "Certainly Crouch may have believed himself to be acting upon You-Know-Who's orders - but to take the word of a lunatic..." They believed that two deranged but powerful Death Eaters, Sirius and Barty, had been running around loose and it was therefore a natural conclusion to attribute any suspicious deaths or disappearances to them. There was no hard evidence for Voldemort's return; all rested on the credibility of ****Harry and Dumbledore and, to a lesser extent, his subordinates, Snape and Minerva, and on whether one could believe the ramblings of an escaped criminal lunatic. (Fudge didn't have to meet Barty to think him mad; Azkaban was known to drive people out of their minds.)**

**Dumbledore was quite confrontational towards Fudge that night, possibly as a result of Fudge bringing a Dementor that Kissed Barty: "He was staring hard at Fudge, as if seeing him plainly for the first time." He insisted that Harry's testimony be accepted without question and at secondhand, "I am afraid I cannot permit you to question Harry tonight." Offended by Fudge doubting Harry's credibility ("'Certainly I believe Harry,' said Dumbledore. His eyes were blazing now..."), he gave no proof, just his affirmation, "Harry is as sane as you or I," and, instead of attempting to persuade or convince him, he started giving what amounted to a series of orders, "If you accept that fact straight away, Fudge, and take the necessary measures..." that required upturning the paradigms of Ministry policy on security and diplomatic relations with other magical beings. **

**Unfortunately, Fudge already had strong reason to doubt Harry's reliability and Dumbledore's impartiality. He reminded Dumbledore that "the boy was full of some crackpot story at the end of last year - his tales are getting taller and you're still swallowing them..." He accused Dumbledore of "keeping certain facts about the boy very quiet", listing the "funny turns", the "curse scar acting as an alarm bell" and the Parselmouth ability, widely believed to be the sign of a Dark wizard. In this atmosphere of distrust, it's also logical to suggest that he thought the blackening of Snape's Dark Mark may have been faked.**

**8) Percy knew broadly what had been said that night because he became Fudge's assistant soon after. He thus understood that Fudge's subsequent purges of Dumbledore and his associates were actuated by the not unreasonable concern that Dumbledore was going to use his power and influence and his private militia (ie a fighting force of ordinary civilians under the guidance of a non-government figure, in other words, the Order) to destabilise society, "determined to start a panic that will destabilise everything we've worked for..." and that his decision to try Harry as a criminal was also a logical next step. It was actuated by his belief that Harry was Dark and dangerous, and strengthened by the memory of having repeatedly let pass Harry's previous misdemeanours (even crimes, such as the flying car incident) on Dumbledore's advice. Unfortunately, his suspicion took him too far; the conduct of the trial was indefensible.**

**The first evidence the Ministry had of Voldemort's return was his sighting in the Department of Mysteries. Until then, Voldemort and the Death Eaters lay low and acted in secret only and thus the Ministry focused their attention on preventing what they saw as the imminent threat; a rebellion by prominent political figure, Albus Dumbledore.**


	7. Sandwiches Before Cake

SANDWICHES BEFORE CAKE

**Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

**Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste and Cecelle. This story is not compatible with HBP, as it is the sequel to a story written before that came out, but it draws on HBP canon where possible.**

The picnic, as Manda later told Hermione, wasn't a complete disaster. Molly brought cauldron cakes and pumpkin pasties, so Manda thanked her politely and quietly put aside her gingerbread pigs for the morrow. The children frolicked in the cool breeze of the nearby park, keeping the women too busy running after them to talk, till Amy-Rose got too whiny about her broken arm confining her to the bumble bee easy rider, and the car spring rider. Then they sat down to eat – "Sandwiches before cake," Manda and Molly said in unison, then caught each other's eye and smiled in recognition – before another half hour of climbing, swinging and sliding or, for Amy-Rose, sitting on the bee.

It was after they took them home and settled down for a well-earned rest that the day started to deteriorate. The girls pulled out books and blocks and dress-up dolls as the women watched, talking of housekeeping and Hogwarts and the weather – everything but what was really on their minds.

"No, she settled in very quickly," Manda said, "but that's hardly surprising. She had Cammie with her and Callie to tell her what it was like beforehand, and she knew she could go to Severus if she had any problems too big for students to deal with."

"She knew she could go to Severus?" echoed Molly. "Most first years are terrified of him."

"Most first years haven't grown up treating him as a surrogate uncle. He's been the second most important man in her life since she had her first magic accident at five and a half and turned the whole house pink. Inside _and _out. With blobby purple flowers all over the walls, just like the ones she was always drawing."

Molly sipped her tea and smiled sympathetically.

"That must have been a shock. What did the Mug – er, the neighbours say?"

"Oh, the Reversal Squad was very prompt and Obliviated them all before they could say anything. But then the big twins' magic broke out too and they flooded their bedroom with jelly. And we didn't want the Reversal Squad coming back because it was evening and we didn't want anyone who might recognise –"

She stopped abruptly, her glance slipping away from Molly's. Manda stared at Abigail, who was snipping holes into an odd sock – at least she hoped it was an odd sock – to make a doll costume for a dress-up ball she'd dreamed up.

"Anyway," she continued, "we called Hermione, and Severus came out immediately and sorted it all out for us. Sent away the Reversal Squad, de-jellied the room, talked to the kids and helped us plan how to cope with the next time, because Ad – because none of us had a wand."

"You don't have to be afraid to say his name in front of me, you know."

Manda didn't bother pretending to misunderstand her.

"I don't want to fight you. If that means talking about my kids instead of yours, that's what I'll do."

Aggie had given up arguing over the scissors and was winding ribbon around another doll clothed only in a tissue. Manda smiled faintly. She'd always encouraged the girls to make their own fun. Half an hour on the computer - except if there was a homework project - and one hour of TV a day was plenty, as far as she was concerned.

"I don't want to fight you either – don't want to fight either of you," Molly corrected herself, her eyes filling. "I just want my son back. That's all I ever wanted, from the moment he walked out of my door."

The little twins were building another of their complicated towns in one corner of the room as Alfrida laid a train track around and through it. Thea was lying on her tummy with a book under her nose and the big twins were colouring a book of tessellated patterns at the table, next to Alison, whose head was bent over a Transfiguration essay.

"He wanted you back too. You, most of all," Manda said.

"Then why did he send me away every time I tried to visit him? Why did he send back my presents?"

Amy-Rose was kneeling on the other sofa, a puddle of pencils beside her, staring out the window, and drumming her heels. She hated sitting still. Manda bit her lip.

"Because going back meant turning his back on what he believed. And he couldn't do that, even for you."

_He built his whole life around pleasing you, until he just couldn't any more._

Molly was looking at the lone child by the window too, but it wasn't her grandchild she saw.

"But he only believed it _because _it meant turning his back on us." Her mouth trembled. "Because he hated being poor and not having new clothes and books instead of hand-me-downs."

Her daughter-in-law said nothing. Only her lips tightened and little wrinkles of tension appeared around her eyes.

_You never understood him._

Perhaps life was always like that. Perhaps there was one child in every large family that didn't quite fit, one that parents and siblings didn't seem to understand. As they watched, Amy-Rose shifted and huddled her arm against her as if it ached. Manda got to her feet, relieved to have an excuse to change the subject.

"I'll just settle Amy-Rose down. She's looking a bit peaky."

"I could fix that arm in a trice," Molly said. "It does seem a pity to let her suffer."

"No magic in a Muggle home," Manda said reflexively. "It raises too many questions. Enough people have seen her in plaster that they'd wonder why she got it off in two days instead of six weeks."

"You'd leave her in pain for six weeks?" Molly demanded.

Manda's lips tightened further.

"A few days only, then it's more the inconvenience of not being able to move it while it's healing. Sometimes you just have to face the consequences of your actions. Maybe she'll learn something from the experience."

"If you lived in our world –"

"I'd be as helpless as a fish in a circus," she retorted. "And about as silly. I'll never belong in your world."

"Percy doesn't belong in yours."

Manda gritted and ungritted her teeth, clenched and unclenched her fists.

"Excuse me, I'll just see to Amy-Rose," she said carefully. "Perhaps we can discuss this later." _Better yet, never._

A dose of acetaminophen, a chapter of her favourite story and a half hour of her mother's time all to herself brightened the little girl's face on their return. She ran over to her younger sisters and asked, "Can I smash your city down?"

Aislyn looked up, scowling, and Arielle moved to stand in front of it, arms akimbo.

"We still need it. Build your own."

Amy-Rose's lower lip stuck out.

"Can't."

From the table, Amalie looked up, sighed gustily and put down her green marker pen.

"I'll build you one," she said.

Manda ruffled her hair as she went past and Molly smiled, looking up from replaiting Thea's hair. It had been loosened in a scuffle with Aggie, who'd accidentally kicked her book away while walking past and who was still picking up the doll shoes she'd scattered over the room. Molly had ended the fight with the ease of long practice.

"I'm going to start dinner now," the younger woman said. "Maybe you'd rather stay with the kids?"

But that was too much to hope for. Molly followed her into the kitchen and resumed the attack as she bent down to rummage for onions.

"You love your children," she said.

"Of course I do." Manda stood up, cradling five large brown onions. She dumped them on a granite countertop and opened the drawer for a knife.

"I love my children too. Can you imagine what it's like to lose one?"

Manda stopped as if she'd been slapped and turned her head away.

"I'm going to lose them all," she said at last. "One by one, they'll be swallowed up by that great, gaping maw of a school Severus teaches in and, for seven years, they'll come back here as visitors, till they grow up and disappear into a world that actively excludes me; Muggle-Repelling charms and Muggle Secrecy Acts and anti-Muggle gateways to keep me out. I can't watch Alison get onto the train for school. I can't even buy her books without her. And I can't prevent it. It's what they are; it's what they're meant to be."

She laid the onions on the cutting board and began to peel the first one.

"It's different. You'll still see them," Molly pointed out. "They probably won't even live in a purely wizard neighbourhood; there aren't many left now. You can still be a part of their lives."

"Not properly. It's like being stuck in one of the books I grew up reading, like being the crippled child staring through a window at a world I've lost. But without the happy ending. I'm crippled in your world, I always will be. I can't be part of it, even if it wanted me, which it doesn't. You can't hug your children through a pane of glass."

"Then you see why Percy needs to come home where he belongs. Where he can hold the window open for you."

Manda sniffed and rubbed her eyes with her sleeve. _Dratted onions._

"He is home."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After Ginny's unforgiving attitude the last time they'd met, Hermione was surprised to see Ginny at her front door that afternoon.

"Don't think I've forgiven you yet," Ginny said, with lifted chin. "It's just I need someone to talk to and I'd rather you than my sisters-in-law."

"Thanks," Hermione said, letting her in. "I'm glad I'm still your best friend."

"Don't count on it. I haven't yelled at you near enough for keeping quiet about it for so long – for keeping quiet about it at all. If I didn't think you'd retaliate, I'd probably hex you, but I don't like your attack-canaries."

Hermione smirked.

"Good, I don't like Bat-bogeys either. Cuppa?"

"May as well. And a Muffliato, because it's bad enough having Callie listen in, but she's been plotting with Frank for months, apparently."

"Hoist with our own petard." Hermione shrugged as she cast the privacy spell. "We can hardly complain about our kids being snoops, considering how much snooping we did at their age."

"Oi, speak for yourself. What snooping did I ever do in third year? We didn't go to Order headquarters till the summer after."

Hermione raised an eyebrow as she set the kettle boiling.

"And you weren't snooping after your older brothers before that?"

"We-ell." Ginny grinned, opening the fridge and taking out the milk. "Bother you, you know me too well." Her eyes looked inwards. "He's not how I thought he'd be somehow."

"Isn't he?"

"No." She slumped in a chair at the kitchen table, inhaling the steam from her cup with half-closed eyes. "More – raw, more exposed, I suppose. He'd been biting his tongue for a long time before he finally went off at Dad that day, hadn't he?"

"Years, I think."

"He always was a secretive git. He wouldn't have told any of us about Penny, if I hadn't walked in on them kissing that time in my first year. Although I guess that's understandable, considering how Fred and George twitted him with it after I blabbed it out. But think how miserable he must have been after she was Petrified! And who did he talk to about it? Not anyone in our family! I don't know if he ever talked to anyone at all!"

"Good job it was only three weeks before they revived us," Hermione said. _Good job we were using a mirror to look round corners,_ she thought with an inward shiver. She could still see those huge, glowing, lamp-like yellow eyes in her dreams sometimes.

"Mmhm. Three weeks doesn't sound like so much, but I bet he felt it lasted forever. And then it ended with me disappearing into the Chamber. And he'd always been such a mother-hen over me all my life." She chewed on her lip and turned her cup round and round on its plate. "Do you think that's when he started going wrong?"

Hermione took a sip and pondered.

"He still doesn't think he went wrong," she said. "But I think that may have been when he started doubting. Severus would know. I've never asked. Ron got injured in first year, but that was just the once and besides, Dumbledore wasn't even at Hogwarts that night."

"Dumbledore wasn't at Hogwarts when I went into the Chamber."

"But he was there when Penelope and I got Petrified," Hermione pointed out. "And it was his decision to keep the school open that left us in danger. Plus I suppose it began to seem like a pattern."

"He didn't seem any different the following year. I always just assumed he was happy, you know, being Head Boy and all. He was always so smug about it." Ginny put down her cup, folding her lips and blinking twice. "Now I'm looking back and wondering if he was ever happy at all in our house. Whether it was all just pretending."

"Oh, I think he liked being Prefect and Head Boy, sure enough. There wasn't any pretending about that. And he was pretty good at it too, for all none of you ever thought so." Hermione took another sip. "Conscientious and careful – he still is, actually. And he seemed happy with Penelope all right, whenever I saw them together. But the rest of it, I don't know."

"I feel so stupid."

"Why should you? You were five years younger and he was practically a grownup. You know what a huge difference that makes at that age."

Ginny nodded, but her mouth still drooped.

"We were all stupid. Him, most of all. Couldn't he talk to Mum, if not to us? Why didn't he ever talk to Mum?"

"I don't know," Hermione answered. "How much did any of you talk to her?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The children petitioned for their grandmother to stay to dinner and Manda didn't have the heart to refuse them, they'd been so good all day. Besides, it might be better to get all the fireworks out of the way as quickly as possible; short, sharp and painful, but soon over. Maybe then, they could move on.

She almost repented when Adam came home and turned pale at the sight of his mother bent over his daughters' hands, checking they'd scrubbed their nails. She cocked an eyebrow at him – 'Do you want me to keep her busy?' – but he took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders and shook his head, 'I'll manage.'

"Daddy, daddy, look! Gramma's here!" Alfrida cried, reaching him first. He picked her up and gave her a twirl, then did the same for Arielle, Aislyn, Aggie and Abigail. Amy-Rose hung back a little, scowling.

"Come here, poppet," he said and hoisted her up on one hip so she could rest her head on his shoulder and her arm against his chest. "No twirlies for you till that arm's better, but you can still have your cuddle. Hello, Mum, have you had a good day?" He kissed her and Manda on the cheek and tousled the heads of all the other girls in turn with his free hand.

Molly gave him a misty smile.

"It's been lovely. Your children are adorable – and almost as well-behaved as you always were."

A shadow crossed his face. He hoped it was not for the same reason; he wanted them to grow up secure in their parents' approval, even at risk of misbehaviour of Twin-like proportions. He didn't say so though. Concealment of his real feelings from his mother's not-so-eagle eye was too ingrained.

Dinner went smoothly and Molly stayed afterwards to help put the children to bed. By the time they'd finished, mother and son were more in accord than they'd been for decades. Then Manda left them alone to talk while she scrapbooked and that's when things started coming unstuck.

"I shouldn't have said that yesterday," Molly conceded. "You really are a good dad. Arthur would have been proud of you."

Adam could only stare at her, a heavy ache in his chest and a prickling in his eyes. He'd never expected to hear that. He wasn't sure he deserved it.

Startled by his silence, Molly looked closer.

"Percy? Are you – crying?"

He shook his head, swiping savagely at his eyes.

"I'm all right," he muttered. _What I would have given to hear those words twenty years ago? _

"You don't look all right."

"I'm fine, Mum."

She glanced sideways at him, pursing her lips, then she shrugged off her doubts.

"Why shouldn't you be? You haven't been thinking us dead for twenty years."

He stood up hastily and took a turn around the room, trying to still the hurt bubbling up like lava, but the words would come, despite him.

"Do you think I haven't suffered?"

Molly gave him a sceptical sideways glance.

"But you knew we were alive; we thought you were dead. Do you understand what it's like to lose a child? Not just for a quarrel but forever?"

His mouth quivered.

"I thought it would be easier for you if you thought I was dead," he explained. "You could turn the page and go on with your life and you'd never have to think about me again."

His mother shook her head at his folly.

"Oh, Percy! As if I could ever stop thinking about you, just because you're not within my reach. You'll understand when your children start growing up and away from you –"

"I think I understand now," he said thickly. "I don't stop thinking of Alison when she's at Hogwarts."

Molly snorted.

"Of course you don't, but it's not the same. You know you'll see Alison again at the end of the school year or during holidays and you can owl her in between times. But I thought you were lost to me forever."

He prowled around the room again, straightening little china dogs on the mantelpiece and carved wooden fish in the open cabinet.

"Mum –"

"You took my child, Percy!" she burst out. "You made my Boggart real."

"Oh, mum. I never meant – I thought it was better this way," he pleaded.

"Better for who?"

"Everybody."

She didn't answer. He lifted his head to see why.

"Mum? Don't – Don't cry, Mum, please don't, I can't bear it." He stumbled forward and fell on his knees in front of her chair to pull her into his arms, her head on his shoulder and his on hers.

"Oh, Mum."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ron? Are you here to see me or Severus?"

"Both of you, I suppose, really. But mostly you. Look, can I come in?"

Hermione had been frozen on the spot, staring at him, but now she stepped back from the door, with an embarrassed but hopeful laugh.

"Of course, you can. Shall I get him?"

Ron's head reared back.

"Er, no thanks. We couldn't possibly ever be friends. He hates me and I don't much like him either. But I've been thinking." His voice paused as he followed her into her study. Once inside, he looked around, blinking at the bookshelves and bibelots.

"Thinking?" she echoed. "Thinking about what?"

"This. You, me, us, Percy."

"Percy?" she probed dubiously.

"Yeah, him too. It set me thinking. I've been a prat, haven't I? Trying to tell you what to do and how to live. Just like he used to. If I wouldn't take it from him, why should I have expected you to take it from me?"

"Oh," she said uselessly. "So you're here to –"

"To say sorry. Seventeen years late. And to ask if you'll forgive me and we can be friends again. Because – because I've missed you."

She flew into his arms and hugged him tightly.

"Oh, Ron! Of course I forgive you," she said, when she got her voice back. "I'm just – I'm just surprised – shocked. In a good way though," she added hastily. "Whatever brought this on?"

"I told Harry about Percy."

Hermione stared at him in consternation. Ron had never been good at keeping quiet; whatever he thought, he had to open his mouth and say.

"What did you tell him about Percy – er, Adam?"

Ron spread his hands and just looked at her.

"Everything."

She winced.

"What did he say?"

"Said I was the world's second-biggest prat. Wouldn't say who was first."

Hermione grimaced. _As if he needed to!_

**A/N Canon doesn't tell us how often Hermione saw Percy and Penny together. The mention of their happiness is extrapolated from their cheerful bet over the Ravenclaw-Quidditch match in PoA.**


	8. A Place of Peace

A PLACE OF PEACE

**Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

**Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste and Cecelle. This story is not compatible with HBP, as it is the sequel to a story written before that came out, but it draws on HBP canon where possible. There's a character list at the end of the chapter.**

**This chapter is dedicated to risi. I blame her…**

When the last two Weasley teenagers lounged into his classroom, Severus gave them a hard glare and stood up. Beside him, Neville stood likewise and waited for him to begin. They'd be running this meeting by themselves, as Amory had been called away.

"Settle down."

Severus waited for silence, his eyes raking the crowd of mostly redheads. Two silvery-blonde girls from Beauxbatons – Bill's daughters - sat together with Charlie's oldest at the front, while their strawberry blond brothers sat further back amongst brighter-haired cousins. Three dark girls squeezed around the front table on the other side of the classroom with a pair of wide-eyed auburn-haired identical twins, his own daughters with Percy's three oldest. Alison had petitioned for their presence with the plea of being outnumbered.

"You all know why you're here," he began. "Your uncle prefers to live as a Muggle, but he has agreed that his children should know their aunts and uncles and cousins. You are not required to keep this a secret, but we will not tolerate any backbiting or rumour-mongering, nor any malicious pranks against his children."

His eyes settled briefly on Kerry and Kelly, then on their younger siblings, David and Jonathon, pranksters all. But what could you expect from children that grew up helping in their fathers' joke shops? They stared back with professional innocence.

"Alison has nine younger sisters. Amalie and Adelaide start here in September and have therefore joined us today. Before we continue, you're each to stand up briefly and introduce yourself for their benefit." He pointed at the front desk.

"Louise. Year 5, but not here; we go to Beauxbatons, like maman, but we 'ave permission to stay an extra day to meet you."

"Jeanne-Paule. Beauxbatons also, year 3."

"Marianna, year 6. I'm your oldest girl-cousin. My dad is your Uncle Charlie. Welcome to Hogwarts."

So much for the first row.

"Kerry and Kelly, year 4. We're not twins, we're –"

"– Weasley Wizarding Wheezes cousins, and we're on the Quidditch team."

"Martin. Er, same here, I guess – that is, I'm on the team too, I'm not a Wizarding Wheezes cousin – and I'm in year 5." He sat down and jumped up again. "Oh, and I'm Marianna's and Char's brother."

The third row contained only two, but they'd pushed their chairs back to accommodate their long legs.

"Michael. I'm in year 6."

"Thierry. This is my last year – always assuming I pass the N.E.W.Ts, of course." He smiled, pushing a hank of floppy strawberry-blond hair off his face.

Behind sat four, much smaller.

"David and Jonathon. We're –"

"– not twins either. We're in Alison's class."

They stood up and bowed extravagantly, in unison. The girl next to them grimaced and spoke very fast.

"So'm I. I'm Charlotte and I even sleep in her dorm. But those two on my right are Wheezes cousins, so never, ever, _ever _eat or drink anything they give you – or their big brothers either. I don't know why no one else warned you."

"Excellent advice," her Uncle Neville put in, from the front of the room. The accused four only smirked.

She gave a quick nod, adding triumphantly, "And my little sister, Natalie, starts next year too, so she'll be in your class."

The next boy winked at them.

"Julien. I'm a year ahead, but I'm only two months older than Char. Don't worry, we'll look after you."

Finally, the last four, squeezed together at the back on the other side of the room.

"Diana. Year 6 also. I'm Michael's twin."

"Laura. Year 3. And I'm their sister and our dad's your Uncle Ron."

"Frank Longbottom, also year 3. I'm very pleased to meet you at last."

"What do you mean, at last? We only just found out," said his taller neighbour, giving him a hard stare. "Is that what you've been sneaking around with Callie about all year?" His professor cleared his throat meaningfully. "Oh, er, I'm Stephen, by the way, year 5, and this little squirt next to me is my brother. And that's Dad at the front of the classroom, we're your Auntie Ginny's kids."

"Yes, very well, you can talk their ears off later," Severus said sourly. "Now, I've met with all your parents over the past few days and all have assured me that they desire to reunite the family. The last thing they want is for any of you to carry on the disputes that led your uncle to leave."

His glare lingered briefly on Ronald's three, Diana, Laura and Michael, who were scowling back at him with their dad's blue eyes.

"If that is understood? Very well. Professor Longbottom?"

"Thank you, Professor Snape." Neville smiled at his children, nieces and nephews. "All being well, you'll meet the rest of your cousins some time in the summer. I'm sure you must have questions now. Who wants to start? Laura?"

"Why are Callie and Cammie here?"

As had been previously arranged, Neville waved the question over to Alison, who stood up to answer.

"I asked for them. They've been my best friends since primary school."

"Why don't you look like your sisters?" Charlotte asked.

"They look like Dad, I look like Mum." She shrugged. "Most of us look like Mum. Amy-Rose is the only other one who looks like a Weasley. And Dad says she acts a lot like Uncle Fred and Uncle George." Her mouth twitched as Kerry and Kelly smirked, David and Jonathon hi-fived each other and Professor Snape harrumphed. "But she's only six so she won't be at Hogwarts till we're almost out of it."

"It is vairy pretty colouring," Jeanne-Paule said, her head on one side and her eyes smiling. "Like biscuits dipped en chocolat."

Alison ducked her head and disclaimed.

Severus roamed the classroom as the questions and answers zoomed back and forth, interjecting only when necessary.

"Why does your dad hate our parents?"

"What a singularly dunderheaded question, Laura Johanna." When there were too many Weasley students to distinguish them by their last names, he compromised by using their other names in full, as the most formal alternative. "If your uncle hated his family, he wouldn't have agreed to this meeting."

"Well, why else would he pretend to be dead, sir?" her brother asked, to a hubbub of muttered agreement. "What was he afraid of? Did he do something wrong and have to run from the law or something?"

"Was he a Death Eater?"

"A thief?"

"Did he leave gambling debts?"

"Silence! Stop this uproar at once and ask your questions one at a time!" Severus snapped. "Your uncle is, and has always been, a hard-working, responsible and law-abiding person, Michael Jacob. Perhaps you'd like to rephrase your question?"

"What was he afraid of? If he wasn't hiding from his family or the law, then who was he hiding from?"

_Himself._

Severus strode to the front of the room and looked them over before answering, debating with himself over how to explain without seeming to push the blame on either their parents or Alison's. It was strange to be standing in front of a classroom, trying to find a way _not _to criticise. He eyed the children, knowing he had only a small window of time to begin speaking before losing control of the class. Only this wasn't really a class, was it? And with that, he was ready.

At his first words, they stilled. Eyes widened and jaws dropped. It was unheard of for Professor Snape to sound so gentle.

"Sometimes, one reaches a place in life where there seems no way out or round or through, where the only option seems to be to make a complete break with everything that's gone before. I hope none of you will ever personally experience how one might come to feel that one's family is better off without one; how little, petty quarrels can grow to monstrous proportions and it can seem that there is an impassable wall."

He glanced in the direction of a stifled sob. The twins were thoughtful, but Alison was rubbing her eyes hard as Cammie thumped her on the back and Callie conjured her a box of tissues. Neville caught his eye with an encouraging smile.

He nodded back and continued, "One moves on or one doesn't and the darkness grows or it passes. If one has patience and time enough, everything passes in the end. From a place of peace and strength, one can look back and try to recover what was lost. Or, if one no longer needs it, let it go."

He came back to himself with a start, suddenly aware that they were staring. His face flamed and he jerked away to stare at his empty desk. _What on earth had possessed him? _

"Yes, very well. Next question," he growled.

When the most pressing questions had been asked and answered, Neville allowed the children to mingle. Frank, pressed forward immediately to buttonhole Callie, and his brother and cousins followed in a cheerful, curious throng. Severus watched them absently. It was the Wales twins' turn to ask questions and soon Charlotte and Julien were dragging them over to their Uncle Neville to ask if they could give them a guided tour of the castle. He nodded and they ran off, chattering.

"That didn't go too badly," Neville murmured, as the other children started to leave.

Severus shrugged, avoiding his friend's eye. _What on earth had possessed him to speak of feelings to students? _But Neville never seemed to need to see his face to know his thoughts.

"I shouldn't worry," he said. "They won't respect you any less for showing them you're human."

He was too tactful to stay longer. Severus walked over to the store cupboard and stared blindly at the packed shelves.

"Severus?" came a voice from the open door.

He turned and suppressed an instinctive snarl. _Not him. Not now. _Seventeen years of forced cordiality, for Hermione's sake, had not yet softened into amity; first names graced their lips but fell, still stiffly unnatural, from rigid faces.

"Harry. What brings you to Hogwarts? Your children are causing no trouble and I believe their performance is adequate in all subjects."

Harry gave him a crooked smile and bobbed his head.

"Not the kids. Ron told me. About Percy, or whatever he's calling himself now."

Severus grimaced back.

"You mean Adam."

"Yes, look, could we go somewhere and talk?" Harry asked.

Severus reminded himself of his duty to put up with his wife's annoying friends and took him to his office. His unwanted guest looked around the familiar, dark room, ringed with jars of dry or pickled dead things, and half-smiled, tapping his fingers on the desk, as Severus reined in his irritation.

"I told him I wouldn't make him choose," Harry said at last. "I didn't make Hermione choose between you and me and I won't make Ron choose between me and Percy."

"If you're expecting fulsome gratitude at this late date –"

Harry scowled.

"Stow it! Why d'you always have to be such a – I mean, of course it's not about that."

Severus looked at him over steepled fingers.

"Then why come to me?"

"Because you're Percy's friend. I thought you could tell me – I thought you'd know – Is _he_ likely to make Ron choose?"

"What are you afraid of?" the older man asked. "Do you think the answer would be any different than it was when you were all teenagers?"

Harry leaned forward, his green eyes curiously bright.

"I never made them choose," he said. "I wouldn't."

"No, but a choice was made anyway. On both sides."

"I never knew he hated me so much." Harry had picked up a quill and was running his finger along the side as he spoke. It was all his unwilling host could do not to snatch it from him and bang it down out of reach. "I never meant to hurt him – hurt his family – I wanted to be part of it, but not to push him out."

It was strange to be the peacemaker. Severus considered his next words, but decided on simplicity.

"You didn't push him out."

"But he thinks I did, doesn't he? He told Ron that it all started when I came along." Harry's finger pushed at the ruffled edge of the feather, teasing it apart. Severus gritted his teeth.

"Ronald misunderstood, which, unfortunately, is nothing new. It was his family's coldness that pushed Adam away," he said.

Harry slammed both hands on the desk, dropping the quill.

"They weren't cold! They were the warmest, most loving family I could have dreamed of! I never understood how he could leave them like that. He had a family, a home, everything I'd always wanted, and he threw it away!"

"No doubt to you they seemed perfect. If that's all, I am extremely busy." Severus Summoned the quill from the floor at Harry's feet and examined it, scowling. "Reparo."

To his annoyance, there was no answering scrape of chair or departing footsteps. He looked up to see the younger man staring at him undecidedly and raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not my father, you know; I never was," said Harry unexpectedly.

His host sighed. _Why now, of all times?_

"Less like him than you look, perhaps," he allowed, "but more than you think. Arrogant, headstrong, privileged –"

Harry recoiled, his mouth twisting on something sour.

"Privileged? You've known since fifth year that I was raised in a cupboard!"

"Privileged in our world," Severus explained. "Celebrated, allowed too much freedom, excused of consequences far too often –"

"You hated me from the moment I saw you!" Harry cut in, his hands flat on the desk as he leaned over it, his small, slight figure tense and his eyes hot.

Severus put down the quill, then picked it up and put it safely inside a drawer. He pulled the stack of papers closer, out of Potter's reach, and began neatening the edges.

"No, I merely found you infuriating; Dumbledore's darling, his prophecy child – a lazy, sloppy, self-absorbed boy, with nothing in your head until you discovered Quidditch. I tried from your first lesson to teach you to pay attention, be ready to protect yourself, notice what was going on around you, learn what you needed to know – but I might as well have talked to your desk as to you."

"You wanted to humiliate me because you hated my dad –"

Severus shrugged, still not looking at him. He didn't see Harry's eyes narrow or his mouth thin. He didn't need to.

"It had nothing to do with your father, except wanting you not to be him. A Potter Dark Lord to replace the one we were trying to defeat was hardly the way I wanted the prophecy to be fulfilled!" he said.

"My dad – He may have been a bully to you, but he'd never have become a Dark Lord! He hated Dark Arts!"

"How do you think most Dark Lords start? By being the biggest bully in the playground, far too often. I did my best to prevent that by giving you the discipline you needed, that you weren't getting elsewhere." Not that he'd ever appreciated it.

"You did your best to make my life a misery."

"I taught you as I was taught, without favouritism or fawning." Severus pushed the papers to one side, disarranging the straight edges again. The inkbottle wasn't stoppered properly. He picked it up to fix that. "If I was harsh, it was to make you strong, stronger than your spoilt brat of a father. Strong enough to survive."

Harry leaned forward and spoke so softly, the world stopped to listen.

"Strong enough to be your atonement for his death?"

Severus jerked, splashing ink on fingers and across the desk. He didn't notice. The air was too thick to breathe; he was choking.

"I know why my parents died." Harry didn't notice the ink either. "And I know it was you that told Voldemort the prophecy."

_Lily's eyes; Lily's eyes in Potter's hated face._ One word came from a dry throat.

"Yes."

His hands were trembling. He laid them on the wet desk, still clutching the inkbottle and stopper, and waited for judgement. He'd always known one of his victims would find him and know him; he hadn't expected it to be Lily's son, not after all this time.

"That's why you can't admit that I had a miserable childhood, because you know you gave it to me. You robbed me of my parents, my home, everything I wanted and grew up without."

Severus bowed his head, not even aware of his fingernails digging into his palms.

"And that's also why you kept saving me, when you couldn't even bear to look at me, isn't it? I used to wonder about that."

"Yes." Severus gulped down bile. His life on the line; Potter could take everything. "Are you going to tell Hermione?" He'd hoped she'd never know.

Incredibly, his accuser's face softened.

"If I didn't tell her before she married you, why would I tell her now?"

"You've known since then?" He didn't believe it.

"Since the very end of sixth year. I wanted to kill you, at first, and Dumbledore for employing you! I stewed all summer over it, but I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want them telling me how I should feel or what I should do and, in the end, I decided it wasn't the time for private vengeance, not till we finished Voldemort. Then afterwards, I was too tired to bother. Too tired of everything."

Severus rubbed his forehead, leaving a thin smear of ink. That was a string of meaningless words; he couldn't make sense of them.

"But – you knew and you didn't tell her."

"I told you, I wasn't going to make her choose. If you were what she loved, who was I to stop her? If you hadn't loved her too, if I'd thought you were going to hurt her – But you told Sue you'd try not to drive Hermione's friends away and I've never known you lie. You never lie."

Severus knew he should have been relieved, he should have been grateful, but he had to clench his hands together in his lap to stop them rising to strangle that aggravating, incomprehensible man in front of him.

"How could you let her marry your parents' killer? Let your best friend marry someone like me?"

And the man smiled!

" 'S funny, you know," he said, raking one hand through his messy hair. "Sirius called himself that too, the first time I met him. That was why you were so savage about getting him Kissed, wasn't it, because if he was the murderer, then you weren't?" He shook his head as Severus watched with a feeling of a world tipped sideways. "It wasn't him and it wasn't you. It was Voldemort who murdered my parents."

"What difference does it make who held the wand?" Severus burst out. He buried his face in his hands. "It was my fault! Mine!" He'd tried so hard, always, to disguise his real feelings, especially from this unbearable brat. It hardly seemed to matter now.

Harry pushed his chair away from the desk and leaned back, closing his eyes and wishing himself home with Hannah. _Why couldn't the past stay in the past, safely behind them?_ 'Because you have to look it in the face and stare it down first,' he reminded himself.

"You didn't want them dead," he said aloud. "Not even my dad."

The bent, black head shook.

"Not even him. Humbled, yes, but not dead. And not Lily with him, never Lily."

"Lily? My mum was Lily to you? In the Pensieve, you called her Mudblood," Harry reminded him.

Severus lowered his hands and stared down at them, unseeing, his face still curtained by his hair.

"I didn't mean it. We were friends of a sort. Not close, but on talking terms. Most of the time." His Adam's apple bobbed convulsively. "It was a crime to lose her; she was worth ten of the rest of us put together!"

Harry's mouth tried to twitch into a smile, but his chest was aching. He should have asked Sirius and Remus more about her while he had the chance, but he'd only ever wondered about his dad back then. One day, perhaps, he'd be able to get Severus to tell him, one day in the far future.

"So you hate yourself, and you hate me because I remind you of that every time you look at me. And I hate you for hating me and then you hate me some more for hating you back." His breath huffed out in a long sigh. "Don't you think this has gone on long enough? It's ridiculous! Hermione's not just my best friend, she's like my sister, and that makes you family, whether we like it or not. Don't be like Percy and try to run away from it. Families are forever."

**A/N Well, I never expected Harry to have the last word in any of my fics. Not quite though, there's still an epilogue, but it probably won't be posted for another month as I haven't written it yet and I'm deep in Jewish holiday season at the moment. **

**You'll note that I've retained the HBP strand of Harry finding out at the end of 6th year that it was Snape who passed on the prophecy, but I've retooled the circumstances to fit this canon-shafted universe, in which Snape stayed at Hogwarts and Dumbledore survived the war. If you'd ever wondered why Snape thought, "If she knew me better,she wouldn't want to know me at all," as he did in the prequel fic, or why he was so adamant about not discussing his Death Eater days with her, this was, of course, one of the reasons.**

**Character list**

**Severus Snape (Deputy Head, Slytherin Head, Potions master) m Hermione Granger  
ch:  
Calendula Marigold (Callie) - 3rd year  
Camomile Aster (Cammie) - 1st year**

**Gerrilyn (Gerry) Nott and Tavia (Tavie) Greengrass are Callie's best friends.**

**Adam Wales (aka Percy Weasley) m Amanda (Manda)  
ch:  
Alison - 1st year, age 12  
twins Amalie (Am) and Adelaide (Addie) - age 11  
Anthea (Thea) - age 10  
Abigail - age 9  
Aglaia (Aggie) - age 7 1/2  
Amy-Rose - age 6  
Alfrida - age 5  
twins Arielle and Aislynn - 3 1/2**

**Molly Weasley**

**Bill Weasley m Fleur Delacour  
ch:  
Thierry - Head Boy, 7th year  
Louise - 5th year, Beauxbatons  
Jeanne-Paule - 3rd year Beauxbatons  
Julien - 2nd year**

**Charlie Weasley m  
ch:  
Marianna - 6th year, Prefect  
Martin - 5th year, Quidditch team  
Charlotte - 1st year  
Natalie - age 10**

**Fred m  
ch:  
Kerry - 4th year, Quidditch team  
Jonathon - 1st year**

**George  
ch:  
Kelly - 4th year, Quidditch team  
David - 1st year**

**Ron Weasley m Susan Bones  
ch:  
twins Michael Jacob and Diana - 6th year  
Laura Johanna - 3rd year**

**Neville Longbottom (Herbology Professor) m Ginny Weasley  
ch:  
Stephen - 5th year, Prefect  
Frank - 3rd year**

**Minerva McGonagall (Head) m Amory Marchant (Gryffindor Head, Defense Professor)**

**Harry Potter m Hannah Abbott**


	9. Epilogue: Are we there yet?

ARE WE THERE YET?

**Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

**Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste and Cecelle. This story is not compatible with HBP, as it is the sequel to a story written before that came out, but it draws on HBP canon where possible.**

"Are we –"

" – there yet?" asked Arielle and Aislynn in the twin-speak they'd been learning from their Uncles George and Fred for seven years. It had been cute when they were four.

"We'd have been there hours ago if only we'd Apparated with Am and Addie and Alison!" Thea said, with as much energy the fiftieth as the first time she'd said it.

"Shut up, Thea!" said one of her younger sisters. "You're the only one in the car with a license."

"We've got dozens of cousins. They're picking up the Grangers that way; they could have picked you up too," Thea said. Her parents had offered Aunt Hermione's parents a lift, but they'd had the sense to take the short way there. Her mouth thinned. "Besides, Dad could Apparate if only he wasn't so stubborn."

"That's enough, Anthea!" her mother snapped. "Your father's given all of you the choice of which world to live in and you _will_ give him the same courtesy. Not another word!"

Thea folded her lips and glowered at Aggie and Alfrida, who were glaring back at her.

"But are we –"

" – there yet?" the twins wailed.

As their daughters climbed out of the minibus forty minutes later and ran into the house, Adam and Manda heaved a dual sigh of relief.

"She'll grow out of it," Manda said, patting his arm. Thea was the most like him. Was that why he and she were always arguing?

Adam stared at and through the steering wheel at the red-brown ground where the dirt road petered out into his mother's yard. The girls loved it here. They had only happy memories of the place.

"Will she?" he asked. "I didn't."

Manda twitched at the sleeveless jersey shift-dress and lace shrug that had sparked a twenty minute tirade from Thea that morning – too pink, too Muggle and too slinky for a _mother_ to wear – and pulled out her lipstick.

"You're here, aren't you?" she said.

Adam stared across the yard, empty of chickens for once, ahead to the space beside the front door that used to hold a jumble of Wellington boots, summer and winter. It too had been cleared and the door had been repainted the same colour.

"Am I?"

The party had spilled over from the house into the garden. Adam wandered through the crowd, sometimes with his wife, sometimes without, as groups formed and reformed around them or she went off to help her sisters-in-law with the food. He made laborious conversation with his extended family – at least the nephews and nieces got his name right – shook hands with Harry and Hannah Potter, and smiled pleasantly at all comers till his cheeks ached and his eyes smarted.

"We do appreciate the effort," said a voice at his ear.

Adam turned and smiled.

"Severus, congratulations! I was looking for you."

"I thought you might be. I was Marking the Circle with Neville." He should have known Callie would insist on a traditional ceremony, complete with all observances, even the traditional duties of the fathers of bride and groom.

"Little Callie a bride!" Adam marvelled. "I can still see her bossing my girls around as if she had eleven little sisters instead of just one. Remember how excited she was with each new baby?"

Twenty-one years of memories flooded Severus's mind, from the first time he'd held her, a squalling, furious bundle that fitted neatly into the crook of his arm, with her mother's nose and his mother's hair, till the kiss she'd given him this morning at breakfast.

"I could hardly forget," he said grimly, "as she used to ask searching questions about why we didn't give her any of her own."

"I never knew that. What did you tell her?" Adam said.

"We persuaded her to settle for kittens. She always was as obstinate as her mother." He'd never been able to refuse her anything, from the first time she'd held a pudgy little baby hand out to yank at his hair and stuck her finger in his nose instead.

"And as caring. I don't think Ron would ever have got through school without Hermione," Adam said. "I don't know whether the same holds true for Callie's friends, but they're certainly lucky to have her beside them."

"You know she credits you with making the match."

"Yes, she told me." Adam smiled, remembering what Callie had said. _If Frank and I hadn't spent all third year sneaking around trying to figure out where you fitted into his family, it might never have occurred to us to try fitting me in too. _"I'm sure she gives me too much praise for something that was probably inevitable from the moment they were born."

"Not inevitable, I believe, but certainly not unlikely." His friendship with Neville was of longer date than their children's births and their wives had been close since school.

"Who'd have thought with both of us having only girls that we'd wind up connected by marriage?" Adam mused.

"I certainly didn't expect Callie to marry a Gryffindor." _Much less a Longbottom. _

His eyes roamed over dozens of heads in all shades of red, from strawberry-blonde to deepest auburn, with a sprinkling of brown, black, golden, grey and silver. The guests were mostly colleagues, students and ex-students – and ninety percent of them were Housemates. It was a very Weasley wedding.

Adam's mouth twitched.

"Marrying cross-house is one of the things she gets from you."

"So Hermione's been reminding me," Severus said.

She'd smiled as she told him he couldn't blame their daughter for doing the same thing he'd done and he'd held back the thought that it wasn't the same, not the same at all. He'd been starting afresh, having pulled his old life down around his ears. It hadn't been a free choice, as his daughter's was, a choice amid plenty; it had been a choice of desperation and need, one oasis in a desert of desolation. And it had proven a good choice, a happy choice – but there were too many Gryffindors here.

"Frank's a lot like his father," Adam said. As sweet-tempered as Neville, but with more of Ginny's brass. "They'll be happy together."

"Hmm."

"They're lucky." Adam stared into the medium distance, absently noting where a gnome popped up his head, gaped and swiftly disappeared. How often he'd helped de-gnome the garden as a child, before the job was passed to younger brothers. "To find what they need so close to home." He closed and opened his eyes and sighed again. "To know that their choices are approved and applauded."

Severus's eyes clouded.

"They are lucky," he agreed. T_o have roots they don't need to cut in order to flourish in the sunshine._ "I hope all our girls are as fortunate."

Both men gazed out at the crowd, remembering other times that would never return.

"Why such sombre faces at such a happy time?" Minerva asked as she joined them. "You do have such a talent for moping when you should be merrymaking, Severus." Under her pointed emerald hat, her eyes twinkled. "Adam, you haven't met my husband, I believe. Amory Marchant, Adam Wales."

Adam smiled mechanically as they shook hands. He should have been happy at least someone remembered he wasn't Percy any longer, but it only reminded him that his siblings did not.

"Pleased to meet you at last. You're the man who broke the curse," he said.

The man was since his time but he'd heard of him, of course. The longest-serving Defense teacher since Grindelwald days, his daughters' Head of House: so this was Severus's mentor, as Severus was his.

"I believe the credit for that goes to Mr Potter," Amory replied. "He disposed of the caster and the curse disposed of itself."

"Indeed. We have so much to be thankful to Harry for," said Severus, with a slight edge. He owed Harry more than he liked to remember.

He hadn't been able to refuse Harry's offered forgiveness seven years ago, but the knowledge that Harry knew one of his darkest secrets, his hand in his parents' deaths, had been like a gall chafing his spirit, prompting him to confess it to Hermione that same night. He'd expected her to draw back in horror. Instead she'd drawn him close and held him, stroking his hair, his cheek against her breast, till he stopped trembling.

"I wondered," was all she'd said. "But nothing from that time could ever change things between us."

After that, perforce, he'd been family with the Potters. He admitted the necessity; family were the companions you didn't get to choose.

"About time you admitted that," Minerva said trenchantly. "The number of time we argued over that boy when he was at school! You wouldn't hear a word in his favour."

And he didn't want to hear one now either, so he said nothing.

"Old hurts have sharp points," Amory said, stroking his neat beard. "All the more when they rip you unawares at times of celebration."

Severus frowned. At Draco's naming ceremony, Narcissa had cried for her sisters and Lucius had – _No! He wasn't going to think of the Malfoys. He was never going to think of them. _He turned his head to watch Bill's scarred face crease into a smile of welcome as his older daughter transferred a whinging toddler into his arms.

"Life and loss go together as surely as tree and leaves," Amory mused. "Few joys stay evergreen forever and yet new life seeds in the litter."

Adam looked up. You could always tell when someone spoke from personal experience, however flowery their language.

"Does the tree regret losing the leaf as much as the leaf regrets the tree?" he asked. _And which am I, in this situation? Leaf torn adrift or tree reft of cover?_

"At first. But then new leaves grow. Not in the same place perhaps, but grow they do."

"Only to fall again." Adam's eyes stared into memory. _And once fallen, they couldn't be put back. Whether they wanted it or not._

Amory agreed.

"Yes. Each binding is a severing, each beginning an end. We welcome the new life even as we mourn the old."

When Severus found Hermione again, she was reminiscing with the Longbottoms. The shimmering, shifting greens of her robes reminded him of the cold January morning in Malfoy Forest almost twenty-five years earlier when she'd looked at him with seeing eyes for the first time. When he occasionally still woke shivering from nightmares, that was the image he placed behind his eyelids as he burrowed his face in his wife's irrepressible curls.

"I can't even remember any more why I was so scared of him then," Neville was saying as Severus approached from behind. "It just seems silly now."

"Boo," Severus said in his ear.

Neville turned his head, smiling.

"Twenty-five years too late for that," he pointed out.

"I've always wished I'd seen it," Ginny added. Severus dressed as her gran-in-law, heels, handbag and all, had been hilarious in the retelling all those years ago and had quickly entered into school legend, but it must have been even funnier in the seeing.

"It was rather unforgettable." Hermione's lips quivered and her eyes laughed into her husband's.

"Is that why you made Madame Malkin add green trim to my robes?" he grumbled, flicking fretfully at the piping on his cuffs. He didn't think he'd ever seen the cantankerous old biddy in any other colour.

"No, but now you mention it, I recall that the vulture hat suited you perfectly," Hermione teased. "What's wrong with green? It's the only colour other than black or grey that you ever wear."

"Only to House Slytherin matches," he defended, "or sometimes a scarf in winter."

"I didn't expect you to mind wearing Slytherin colours," she said bemused. "Now, if it had been crimson!"

""It probably will be, next time," Ginny said. Neville's Great-Auntie Enid was beckoning from the back door. Ginny pointed to him as well as herself in mute question. It seemed they were both wanted. "Just wait till it's Cammie's turn."

Severus scowled after them.

"Next time," he muttered. "As if this isn't bad enough. It's such a very Gryffindor wedding."

"Look around you." Hermione's eyes were as bright and brown as ever. "You're leading such a very Gryffindor life."

It was true. Here were his family, his confidants and closest friends, the people he'd surrounded himself with, the people he'd chosen or that had chosen him. The ones that were left.

"Severus?" A voice came at his left. "Do you think Manda would come to the Quidditch World Cup in Calais if we got them all tickets?"

He turned and raised an eyebrow.

"Ronald, I know Quidditch is the be-all and end-all of your life, but –"

"If you weren't so fond of the sound of your own sneer, I could get a word in edgewise. It's nothing to do with what I like. It was something Percy said that gave me the idea."

"You mean Adam."

The younger man ignored him and blithely continued.

"See, I asked him if there wasn't anything at all he missed about being a wizard and he said 'Not really, except Quidditch.' " His voice rose on the last word.

His listeners were similarly surprised.

"You don't think that might be just trying to find common ground, because you're coaching the Cannons Juniors?" Hermione asked.

"More likely you misheard him saying 'Quitting it,' " suggested her husband sourly.

"Ha, ha," Ron replied, unabashed. "I was gobsmacked, of course, because he never played that I can remember, but he said just because he didn't play didn't mean he didn't like watching and he'd never really got into Muggle sports. So I talked it over with the others – we're all going – and we thought, why not, eh? We haven't done anything together as a family since the Death Eaters spoiled the Cup in '94. And Mum didn't come that time."

"You're doing something together as a family now," Hermione pointed out. "I'd have thought a wedding was a better way of getting together than Quidditch."

"That's just because you don't like it yourself," Ron said, sharing with Severus a glance of entirely male exasperation at her incomprehension of the important things in life.

Hermione gave her husband a surreptitious poke in the side.

"Don't tell me you're planning to go too," she said.

"While the thought of ruining all my students' and ex-students' pleasure is a tempting one, no. I've far too much to do in relation to the Ministry's latest nonsense." Reviving the Triwizards again! Had they learnt nothing from last time?

The ceremony began at midday. Severus stood next to Hermione. Heart swelling, he looked at his girls, Callie, her hair like a fall of dark silk over the cream gown that her mother and grandmother had worn before her, and Cammie, a quicksilver sprite in jade-green, silver ribbons coiled in her hands.

Behind them stood their best friends, Gerrilyn and Tavia and Alison, in jade likewise, and beside them, Frank and four of his cousins, their heads as bright as copper kettles. _And almost as empty, _he repeated to himself the words he'd so often flung at them in school, knowing he was being unreasonable. They were none of them talented brewers, but they were well enough.

From across the Circle, Neville caught his eye and smiled. Severus felt his mouth twitch into an unaccustomed smile in return. Ginevra slipped her hand into Neville's and her head against his shoulder. All here were family, or near enough so.

The old familiar words washed over them.

"May you be to each other as air on a mountain-peak, water in the desert, fire on a cold night, the good earth, ever-giving. May wisdom guide you, kindness unite you, passion warm you and loyalty sustain you…"

Now for the Binding, now the loving-cup. On their wives' return, he moved forward in unison with Neville, his cloak in his hands, and presented it, as he and Neville intoned the ritual release.

"Go with good fortune, go with good will, go with my blessing, to new home and hearth."

Frank wrapped the cloak around himself and his new bride, holding it high with one hand as he kissed her beneath it.

And it was done. A binding and a severing, just as Amory had said.

"They say that life is a journey," Neville told the assembly after the feast. "The important thing is not how quickly you get where you're going, but that you go in the right direction. Together."

Adam squeezed his wife's hand in silent thanksgiving, yet he couldn't help wondering._ Are we there yet? _

"Frank, Callie." Neville smiled at his son and new-made daughter. "Remember that the best travel companions understand that the trip is better than the destination and take time to enjoy the ride –"

_Perhaps we don't need to be._

THE END

**A/N It seems everyone in HP-fanfiction who writes a wedding feels the need to make up his/her own version of a wizarding ceremony. This is mine, based on the four elements and the folk saying regarding threefold repetition, "What I tell you three times is true."**

**BTW, the colour of the Snape-Boggart's dress wasn't actually specified in canon, but Neville said his grandmother wore "a long dress … green, normally …" and Lupin said his spell should force "Professor Boggart Snape …into …that green dress…"**

**Character list**

**Severus Snape m Hermione Granger  
ch:  
Calendula Marigold (Callie) - age 21  
Camomile Aster (Cammie) - age 19**

**Gerrilyn (Gerry) Nott and Tavia (Tavie) Greengrass are Callie's best friends.**

**Adam Wales (aka Percy Weasley) m Amanda (Manda)  
ch:  
Alison - age 19  
twins Amalie (Am) and Adelaide (Addie) - age 18  
Anthea (Thea) - age 17  
Abigail - age 16  
Aglaia (Aggie) - age 14 1/2  
Amy-Rose - age 13  
Alfrida - age 12  
twins Arielle and Aislynn - 10 1/2**

**Molly Weasley**

**Bill Weasley m Fleur Delacour  
ch:  
Thierry  
Louise  
Jeanne-Paule  
Julien **

**Charlie Weasley m  
ch:  
Marianna  
Martin  
Charlotte  
Natalie **

**Fred m  
ch:  
Kerry  
Jonathon **

**George  
ch:  
Kelly  
David **

**Ron Weasley m Susan Bones  
ch:  
twins Michael Jacob and Diana  
Laura Johanna **

**Neville Longbottom m Ginny Weasley  
ch:  
Stephen  
****Frank **

**Minerva McGonagall m Amory Marchant**

**Harry Potter m Hannah Abbott**


End file.
